


two percent*

by Oparu (USSJellyfish)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grant Ward dies, Minor Andrew Garner/Melinda May, Minor Phil Coulson/Rosalind Price, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/USSJellyfish/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: Season 3 AU.Six weeks ago Andrew didn't show up in Hawaii and Phil and Melinda had the unintentional, surprise vacation they both needed, getting back to work is really complicated when the head of the ATCU keeps flirting with Phil, Andrew kidnaps Melinda and suddenly she can't keep food down.Also Ward still wants his revenge...(*if used perfectly and correctly)
Relationships: Phil Coulson & Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 167
Kudos: 222





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Season 3 AU where I make a total mess of Melinda May/Andrew Garner and Phil Coulson/Rosalind Price because it's so fun to make a mess. Angstier than I usually write, but hopefully still fun. 
> 
> Inspired by this excellent Ming Na Wen interview. https://apnews.com/b7bf8c5536874c7cf916cccbcba9564e. (thanks Ming!) 
> 
> Many many thanks to Tina and Aditi for all their help and support. 
> 
> Mentions of vomiting, dizziness.

_Set During 3x07 - Chaos Theory_

_ Now _

He walks through the halls of the abandoned building where Andrew's taken her. Then he stands in the shadows, unarmed, watching as Andrew leans in, kissing her. Is May all right? Phil's chest tightens. Andrew's so close to her. Is she safe? Will he hurt her? The chain around her wrist connects to a heavy piece of machinery, so she can't get away. That's not Andrew. He'd never--

"Sorry to interrupt." Phil has to keep her safe. 

They break apart. His heart thuds in his ears. Andrew is a friend. A trusted colleague, he's known him for years, but something's wrong. Everything about the way she stands, the way Melinda looks away, looks down screams that something is wrong. This wasn't good kissing. 

When she finally turns, Phil meets her eyes. Fear shines there, beneath everything else, beneath her incredible control. She's afraid: for Andrew, of Andrew, for everyone else. 

"Still waiting on Joey's reassessment." Stay calm, keep it easy. 

"Phil-" Andrew starts, walking closer. 

He never thought about how big Andrew is before. How much larger he is than Melinda, how dangerous he could be if--

"You don't understand," Andrew continues.

But it's not Andrew, is it? Andrew's disappearing. 

Melinda's hand touches his sleeve and her eyes are liquid with pain. The man she loved, perhaps still loves, is a murderer. He's been following them, stalking inhumans, ending their lives over and over, and that's destroying her. 

"You all right?" he asks Melinda and she nods silently. It's a weak yes. She's chained up and the hand on Andrew's arm isn't just to hold him back. Her fingers are too tight, her face is too pale and there's sweat on her forehead. 

Concussion? Did Andrew hurt her? Something he can't see?

"We're old friends-" Phil says. Keep talking, keep things calm. Wait for backup. "That's why I'd prefer to see everyone walk out of here unharmed." 

May knows what's going to happen. She knows how many he'd bring with. 

"But in case you got something else in mind, I'm not alone." 

Andrew keeps talking, telling them how he has a moral responsibility to kill inhumans, and it tears at Phil, so he can't imagine what it's doing to her. Andrew was-is- one of the kindest, most caring people he knows. He's been in the inner circle. He helped Daisy, Joey, so many inhumans.

And killed others. 

Melinda wavers on her feet. Something's wrong, really wrong, and he can't get to her, can't make sure she's okay with Andrew in between him. She's too pale, almost green. Too many icer shots? Did she hit her head? 

"I've only killed those who deserved it," Andrew says, advancing again. Then the lights pop and explode and the building goes dark. 

Lincoln and all his rage and anguish appear in the hall, and it goes to hell. Andrew disappears, growing in Lash, with all the horror that entails. Phil watches him transform in her eyes and his heart sinks into his stomach. 

"I am the cure." 

They can't stop this. Phil runs to Melinda. "Get down!"

Lightning crackles past them. Her hands grab his wrist, his hand, tight, panicked--

He yells into his comm, reminding his team to capture, not to kill, and he turns to Melinda, digging his keys out of his pocket. Her face is haunted, her eyes too wide. She fumbles with the keys. Her hands are cold and damp. There's sweat in her hair. 

"You okay?"

She shakes her head and they unlock her handcuffs together.

"Did you hit your head?"

"I don't remember. He had an icer--" she stops, winces, and he knows that expression. He hasn't seen it in years. 

"We have a containment module, just trying to get him in it."

She nods, then moans. 

He reaches for her face, holding her head. "Try keeping still." Phil listens to the gunshots, trying to determine how far away they are. It doesn't sound good. "The module's on the ground floor, there's a staircase just down the hall. Can you stand?"

She gives him a look, but she clings to him for support as she gets to her feet. 

"May-"

"I'm fine, I can talk him down." 

He waits, gives her an extra moment to find her feet. When this is over he can have Lincoln take a look at her, make sure it's not a concussion, until then it's triage. They hurry together, Phil a step behind her as they head up the stairs. Too many soldiers lie on the floor upstairs. Dead, dead, and Melinda kneels, picking up a gun. He's seen that face before too, that compartmentalization she depends on when things are really going to hell.

And she does exactly that. She puts her body between Andrew and Lincoln. Then Melinda, talks and talks until Lash shrinks back into Andrew. Phil stands beside Daisy and Rosalind, watching May-

She pulls the gun. Phil counts the bullets, watches Andrew fall back into the module. Melinda seals him in, locks it and then falls. Her knees buckle, the gun drops and he runs as his stomach turns to ice. 

Shaking in his arms, she moans and her eyelids flutter.

"Is she okay?" Daisy demands, half a step behind him. "What happened?"

"I don't know, concussion maybe? I can't find any injuries."

In the module, gas puts Andrew to sleep and they can all breathe, even if it's a moment. 

"I can check her out on the Zephyr," Lincoln says. "Do you want me to carry her?"

Mack's there too. Soldiers. Any of them could pick her up, but Phil shakes them off.

"I've got her." It has to be him. He shifts her weight in his arms, gets a foot underneath him and stands. Daisy touches his arm. Rosalind stares at him, concern etched on her face. 

Everyone else gets the module on board, collects their dead, and he holds her. Daisy grabs the emergency blankets, Lincoln collects the medkit and Rosalind hovers in the background, watching the whole thing. He doesn't want to put her down, even on a blanket on the deck. With the module on board there's not much space, especially with all the new body bags. 

"On her side," Lincoln orders, "just in case." He snaps an ice pack and hands it to Phil. "Back of the neck, maybe we can bring her around." 

"Did Andrew hurt her?" Daisy's voice carries all the fear none of them want to say aloud. 

"I don't know, I don't think so, there's no blood." Phil watches Lincoln run his hands through her hair, looking for injuries. 

Lincoln passes him the smelling salts and he waves it under her nose. Melinda groans, gasping, turning her head away. 

"Hey, sorry, you passed out."

Her eyes flutter, and Daisy holds the cold pack on the back of her neck as they help her sit up. 

"Keep your head down, between your knees," Lincoln says. "That should help if you're head's spinning. 

It's not just that. Melinda's fingers spasm and she grabs Phil's wrist and he tears off his jacket just in time to hold it open in front of her as she throws up. She retches once, then again, and the air reeks of stomach acid and bile. Daisy winces, but she's steady. 

"Water," Lincoln snaps at Rosalind, who looks to the crew.

"I got it," Mack says, returning with bottled water and some paper towels just in time for Melinda to throw up again.

"Phil-"

"It's all right."

"Your jacket."

"It's scratchy anyway, not a favorite."

"Here, I got it."

"Let us know when you're done, we have water." He holds her, letting her head rest on his shoulder while Daisy takes his jacket away. 

"Here, this is better." Mack offers one of the empty plastic bins and they slide it in front of her on the floor.

Lincoln counts her pulse and shakes his head. "Ask her if she ate anything weird, drank anything. Is it just the dendrotoxin from the icer?" 

"I thought icers were safe," Rosalind asks behind him.

"Give you a nasty headache when you wake up," Mack explains. "Might have side effects, depending." 

"Depending on what?"

He tunes that out, touching the back of Melinda's neck. "Did anything happen? Did he hurt you?"

She shakes her head, then freezes. The motion must be making her nausea worse, and as the Zephyr's engines begin to whine there's not a lot he can do to help. 

"Drink some of this." He offers the first bottle of water, and the first swallow makes her vomit again. Phil wipes her mouth on his sleeve and waits a moment. "Try again."

"Phil--"

"How many times did he shoot her?" Lincoln asks again. 

"How many icers did you take?" Phil asks and Melinda looks up a little for him. 

"One."

Phil's eyes flick to Lincoln who nods. 

"Blood pressure's too low, her heart's trying to catch up, pulse is high." He frowns, shaking his head. "If she can walk, I'd like to get her lying down, take some blood, run some tests."

"Hear that? Lincoln wants to draw blood." 

Melinda scoffs and he smiles. She's still her. 

"We need you to walk to one of the bunks, May. Can you do that?"

He meets his eyes, keeping her head as steady as possible. She presses her lips together, then nods. 

"Okay, we got you. Daisy and I are right here." Very gently, they help her to her feet, Lincoln follows with the water and bin they're using. Melinda's heavy against his chest, and Daisy's hands are around her waist, soft at first, then firmly because she's so weak on her feet. 

"Sir, where are we heading?"

Phil has to answer that question, not focus on Melinda's slow breathing. Rosalind was somewhere, he needs to talk to her. 

Later.

"ATCU, they can best look after Andrew." 

Melinda stops them, tugging his shirt. "Is he?"

"Alive. Unconscious. The ATCU can put him in stasis."

She looks at Daisy, forcing her eyes to focus. "Daisy?"

"It's temporary. I think it's a good idea. He helped me. He might still be in there."

Melinda nods again but it's too much. Phil hangs onto her and this time Lincoln gets the bin under her before she vomits again. It's mostly fluid now, there can't be a lot left. 

"It's all right," he murmurs, almost more out of habit. 

"This is bad," Daisy whispers behind her head. "Lincoln?"

"I think it's just a bad reaction to the icer, maybe she didn't eat enough earlier today, or she's dehydrated. I didn't find any injuries." He shrugs, lowering his voice. "Honestly, she just shot her ex-husband because he turned into a monster, could just be stress."

"May doesn't stress, not like this."

"Could she be pregnant?" Rosalind suggests as if it's somehow possible. "Dizziness, intense nausea...some of the preliminary ATCU tests on icer tech suggested they might have adverse reactions on vulnerable populations. Did you ever test them on pregnant women?"

Daisy and Lincoln look at each other and Phil would argue, but Melinda's head's on his chest and he just wants to get her somewhere safe. 

"Probably not," Daisy answers. "I feel like we tested them on like, us, and the bad guys."

"It's just a thought." 

They were careful. Opened a brand new box of condoms in Hawaii, so it's not-- Something shifts in Daisy's eyes and she stares at her hand on Melinda's stomach like it's burned her. Something nags at her that she's trying to keep quiet. He can't ask, there's too much going on and Melinda--

They guide her to the bed and she sits, leaning heavily on him while Daisy and Lincoln slip off her boots. 

"Can you drink?"

"Is that a good idea?"

"If you're done vomiting we need you hydrated. I can get an IV--" Lincoln's stops when Melinda glares.

"I've got it." He holds up the water and helps her drink. "Rinse, spit it out, then try again."

"I'll see if anyone has any gum, something to get the taste out of her mouth."

"Oh I do. In my purse." Rosalind disappears. 

Daisy still has a hand on Melinda's stomach, holding her. It's intimate, sweet, thoughtful in a way that makes Phil's chest warm. Daisy and Lincoln share a look and something makes Daisy's eyes wide and white. 

He can't worry about that. He has her, and she's safe. Phil takes off his dress shirt and sits down beside her in his tank top. Gently stripping off her leather jacket, he keeps a hold of her, trying to steady her. 

Lincoln leans down. "I'm going to take some blood, is that all right?" 

Phil nods, holding her gently to his chest. Lincoln takes her arm, exposing a vein and filling a few vials. Melinda's eyes keep closing, and she drifts. Passing out again would be really bad, but this seems more like exhaustion. 

"Drink some more water before you go to sleep."

"Andrew-"

"He's all right, they'll keep him safe."

"Phil--"

"You need to drink." 

"No...umbrella..."

He chuckles, kissing her hair. "I miss Hawaii too. Go to sleep, you'll feel better when you wake up."

"Liar."

"Try it."

Her eyes close, and she's asleep a moment later. 

* * *

Her mouth tastes sour, vile, and her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Her head pounds, and that's the familiar icer hangover. Her stomach's quieter at least. There's nothing left to throw up. The bed's still, so the Zephyr's landed, and the shower's running. She rolls her head to the side, testing how compromised she still is. She doesn't immediately want to throw up, so this is better. 

Attempting to open her eyes aches, but the light's low in the bunkroom. Daisy sits on the chair in the corner, arms folded over her chest. 

"How're you feeling?"

"Better than being shot."

"Here, drink this." Daisy starts to hand her a bottle of water, but Melinda's hands are slow, clumsy. "Sorry."

"I can sit up." She says it before she's really sure if she can do it, and Daisy's hands help guide her shoulders. 

"Here, chew the gum, it'll help." Daisy unwraps a piece of gum and hands it to her, then follows it by holding up the bottle of water. "I wanted to go get your toothbrush, but Coulson said this was okay."

The gum tastes like mint, but her jaw works and soon that's all she can taste. It's definitely an improvement over stomach acid. The room stills smells sickly sweet, but that's the pile of clothes in the corner. Phil's clothes. He's in the shower. 

"Lincoln's running some blood tests, just wanted to make sure we were really thorough."

"Thank you."

Phil emerges from the shower room in a clean outfit: sweatpants and a t-shirt. He dries his hair for a moment and smiles, hanging up the towel on a hook on the wall. "Feeling better?" 

"Better."

"Better than terrible isn't much, I know." 

"You look better," Daisy says, smiling a little. "Less green." With Phil back, she leaves her chair. "I'm going to go check on Lincoln. Do you want anything?"

Phil looks at her. "There's some crackers in the galley."

"Got it." Daisy stares, her expression soft and gentle. Worry makes her eyes dark and deep. "I'm sorry about Andrew."

Melinda nods, but winces. Moving her head was the wrong choice. 

"Hey," Phil starts, sitting on the bed next to her. "Gently."

"What's happening?"

"We'll find out." He touches her face and smiles, all soft. "Maybe you've just had a really hard day." 

"That doesn't usually end in vomiting."

"Not now that you're old and wise."

She chuckles a little. The Academy was a lifetime of foolish choices ago. 

Phil holds up a tissue for her to spit out her gum, then the water bottle. "Drink."

She's managed to drink some of the water by the time Daisy and Lincoln return. He holds a tablet, clutching it to his chest, but it's Daisy's face she can't look away from. Something's changed. Something's wrong and Daisy has to tell them. She hands Phil the crackers. 

"We finished the tests." 

"Ran the last one twice," Lincoln says, looking at his feet. 

"Is something wrong?"

"Not wrong, I guess. It depends-" Daisy rambles, then stops, taking a deep breath. She has to stare at her hands before she can speak. Whatever it is, it's that-- "May, you're pregnant."

"No."

"Daisy that's-"

Her nausea threatens again, hot and terrible, and Phil's hand grabs her hand so tightly that her fingers ache. 

Lincoln looks at the tablet and then turns it so they can see. "Even early pregnancy can wreak havoc on your cardiovascular system, being shot with an icer, and the stress of everything is a lot. I want you to take it easy for several days, no missions, be gentle with yourself." 

She hears him, but doesn't. Her heart thuds in her ears, whooshing so loud that the words run together. 

Phil opens and closes his mouth, but he can't find words either. 

"We'll give you some time. It's all on here if you want to--" Lincoln trails off, setting the tablet on the bed. He and Daisy back away, somewhere between concerned and terrified. They keep looking at each other, and it's not like they had to say she was dying. She can deal with this and worry about Andrew. 

The door shuts and they're alone. 

"Fuck."

"Did that," Phil teases. "I'm sorry, I thought we were okay."

"We should have been okay."

Phil reaches for the tablet, scrolling through the medical data she won't take the time to read. "Six weeks."

"Of course it was Hawaii, we haven't- I haven't--"

"Sorry."

"Phil, I'm not--" 

"I know, I-" he pauses. "Actually, I don't know."

"I'm fine."

"Fine?"

"I-" she starts, then reaches for the water. "I'm...all right.." 

"Yeah?"

"I wanted..."

"To do the family planning thing," he finishes for her, reaching for her hands. "That was planned. This isn't."

"Doesn't matter." 

"Yeah?" he starts to smile. "You were married."

"You want to get married?"

He blushes at that and she pats his hand.

"This is good, Phil." 

"Good?"

"We haven't talked about it, we haven't had time, but we're good, you and I, we--"

"Are living in the shadows of a paramilitary spy organization?"

Melinda shakes her head. "We make a good team."

"We do, but-"

"Isn't that what parenting is? A partnership." 

"So you want to parent with me?"

She toys with his fingers on his flesh and blood hand. Then nods, closing her eyes. "You're a good option."

"May, you've had a terrible day."

"Doesn't change how I feel about you, or this." 

Phil strokes her forehead, then hugs her, gently, sighing over her shoulder. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I wasn't intended to do the family thing, but with you, I'd be honored, Melinda." 

"Good."

He holds her a moment more, breathing her in. "I missed you."

"You talked to me every day. Sometimes twice." 

"In person you is my favorite you." He strokes her hair again and smiles, smitten. 

"Even when I throw up on your jacket?" 

"I told you, that jacket itched." He opens the packet of crackers and hands her one. "You want to try eating something?"

"Maybe we walk back to my room first."

"Are you up for walking?" 

That's a good question. She shuts her eyes, takes a breath. Swinging her feet to the edge of the bed isn't horrible, but her head swims. Her stomach lurches into her throat and it's really unfair that it can be so upset when it's nearly empty. 

"I can walk."

He stands, offering his hands to get her to her feet. It's slow, and standing up brings little dancing lights to the edge of her vision. Her blood pressure's low, really low if her vision's narrowing that much. Even ten Gs doesn't make her black out this badly. She stumbles, falling into him and he catches her, then picks her up. 

She should argue. Remind him she's perfectly capable, except, maybe right now she's not.

Maybe that's okay. 

"You don't have too," he says, gathering her close to his chest. "It's a long way to your room from here. You can just shut your eyes and pretend to be asleep."

"You think it bothers me?"

He's silent for a while, walking down the cargo ramp from the Zephyr. They'll be with people soon, and if this bothers her, now's the time. "I don't know. I'd feel exposed, I think."

"Vulnerable."

"It's difficult, having people see you when you're not, you."

"Me who can't stand up is still me."

"You're always you." 

She shuts her eyes, listening to his heart, his breathing and the movement of everyone on the base. It's quiet, even peaceful after a mission. This was a hard one and the ATCU unit is still here so some of the voices are unfamiliar, but this is home. They'll make it work.


	2. Hawaii - Six Weeks Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawaii, six weeks ago. Andrew doesn't arrive for his planned trip with Melinda, so Phil and Melinda leave without him. 
> 
> A few drinks later, she invites him up to her hotel room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your support for this story. It's so much fun to plot it out and I hope you'll enjoy it.
> 
> Huge thanks to Tina for her help and support.

_ Six Weeks Ago -  _

"You're terrible at poker." One hour in and she's won most of his last paycheck, which she will not be collecting, but she might make him buy dinner in Hawaii, every day. "If we don't stop now, you'll be giving me Lola after the next couple hands."

"I have thought about giving you the keys to stop this humiliation, yes." He sighs and drops his hand. "Can you beat me in a different game?"

"It's time to go anyway."

"May--"

"Andrew's not coming." She picks up the playing cards and stacks the poker chips back into the box. She takes her seat in the pilot's chair and fires up the quinjet. 

He sits beside her, strapping himself in. Phil looks at her, then down, then puts on his sunglasses. 

"You watched me call."

"You called."

"He's not being held hostage," she says, trying to sound less bitter than she is. 

She lowers the throttle on the vertical takeoff and tries to ignore his "do you want to talk about it" face. Maybe once they're over the Midwest it won't sting as much as it does. Andrew wanted to go on this trip. He suggested Hawaii. They're only flying with Phil because Mack suggested he take a vacation after he lost his hand and Hawaii's a big place, separate resorts and it wouldn't matter.

Now at least she has the company. Solo vacations kind of aren't her thing. Vacations aren't, not really. She hasn't taken any voluntary time off since before Bahrain. After that, there was no point in having a life. At least in her cubicle she had something to do, days off stretched into hours of piercing loneliness. 

"You can beat me at backgammon if you want." Phil rests his hand in his lap, fidgeting because he misses having two of them. "Arm wrestling might be a little weighted in your favor."

"It was even before the axe." 

He chuckles, toying with his jacket. "Most likely true."

Phil lets them sit in silence, which means he's not trying to make her feel better and instead waiting for her to talk about it which means it's bad. He only waits when it's really bad. Of course, her ex-husband whom she was potentially trying to get back together with, perhaps, didn't show up. Didn't call, and according to SHIELD satellites, seems to be fine. They both saw him, going about his day. 

He's just not interested in the little vacation he suggested they take. She's not sure what it is that changed his mind, she might never know. Maybe he owes her this after she walked away. Maybe he's just writing a paper and forgot about the time. She's not going to ask. She can work with him, but she won't think about him as a lover any more. She can't. 

She shouldn't have risked it. Shouldn't have tried. She knew she was too broken for him. Her eyes sting and she needs to do something else. When they reach cruising altitude, she doesn't even have piloting the plane to distract her. 

Phil looks up from his book when she sighs. "This is good, if you want me to read it to you."

She turns her head a little, safe behind her sunglasses. "What are you reading?" 

"It's pretty nerdy."

"I'm used to that about you."

He closes it so she can see the cover. There's some vaguely Celtic looking symbol on the front and a long title that starts with an S.

"What's that, mythology?"

"Kind of. It's like the nerdier history book behind the Lord of the Rings."

"I've heard of that."

"I'll just read, you don't have to listen." He takes a sip of water and clears his throat, then starts reading aloud. It's dense, full of poetic language, and such a Phil book. He keeps reading, patiently. A lot like the way her father who used to read the  _ Three Kingdoms _ and other old folk tales from China. Mulan's always been her favorite. 

"How did he come up with all these names?"

Phil straightens his glasses on his nose. "Tolkien was a linguist before he was a storyteller. They joke that he came up with the story just to be able to use all the names." 

"I see."

It's easy enough to let her thoughts drift with his reading, and he reads enough of the Silmarillion that they're over the Pacific and she might have a vague idea about some of the characters. 

They make a picnic of sandwiches and talk about nothing important. It's hard not to talk about work, or their team, but they barely have any hobbies any more and old times often mean Andrew unless they go all the way back to the Academy, which means dead friends, lost opportunities and all the sorrows that pave the paths of their lives. 

"I think I'd put more pesto on this sandwich. It's too subtle," Phil says, giving her a conspiratorial smile. "Maybe a little more garlic in the aioli."

"I won't tell Simmons."

"I know you won't." He steals some of her chips and she rolls her eyes. "Don't you think it needs something?"

"I was pretty happy Simmons made us sandwiches, I'm not going to criticize it." 

"That's true, it's better than you making us sandwiches." 

"That would not be a good start to a vacation." 

"Truly."  He laughs, and she can't help laughing with him. Phil offers a cookie from a small container. "Bobbi bakes when she's happy, so these are good." 

"I'm glad she's happy."

"I think she might use them to carb up for extra curricular activities with Hunter."

She takes a cookie and smirks at him. "You're planning on extracurricular activities on your vacations?"

"I was planning on sitting in the sun and reading my book. Maybe doing a little snorkeling." 

"Snorkeling?" She tilts her head. "I didn't know that was an interest of yours." 

"It sounds relaxing, all those fish, nothing to worry about." 

Shaking her head, she chuckles. "You did want a fish tank on the plane."

"It would have been relaxing." 

"Fury would have killed you."

"It would have been a new way to die."

All the cookies are gone by the time they land, and they've fallen into familiar, comfortable silence. The sun's already set on Maui and they park the quinjet in a SHIELD storehouse. She grabs her bag and Phil swings his up on his shoulder. 

"I have a reservation near Wailea Beach."

"I don't have a plan, and you won my whole travel budget while we were playing poker."

"Gonna sleep on the beach then?"

"I'm debating."

He'll find his way, always does. She could let him walk away. Tell him to meet her in two weeks and they'll fly back. He'll have a new book by then and they'll both be relaxed. He starts to walk away and she decides.

"Phil, have dinner with me." No point wasting a perfectly good trip.

"Oh-" he starts and nods, even blushing a little. "Okay."

"Come on, there's supposed to be a good sushi place near my hotel." 

It starts with sake with their sushi, warm and soothing, and it goes to her head. His too, by the way he touches her back when they leave. Phil pays, joking that he'll have to buy her dinner every night of the trip. 

"I could live with that."

His eyes widen and his lips part a little. "Really?"

"You want to spend the whole trip snorkeling alone?"

He offers his arm. "Guess I should get a hotel nearby."

"Have another drink with me first." 

That leads them to the hotel bar and a tasting of all the varieties of Japanese whiskey. She prefers the Yamazaki but he insists the Hakushu is better. While they argue and keep tasting different varietals, they slip past pleasantly tipsy into mildly drunk. Her lips tingle by the time they settle the tab.

"It's late," Phil says, whistling when he looks at his watch. "Damn." He swings his bag back up to his shoulder. "Call you tomorrow about dinner?"

He turns but this isn't right. She doesn't want to be alone, and he-- There's only one way to find out what Phil wants.

"You could come up." 

He blinks, then swallows. "Is that what you want?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked." Melinda tilts her head towards the elevator. It seals them in and they stand next to each other, not touching, not looking at each other and then his finger brushes the back of her hand. 

She shivers even though the air is warm and sweet. He brushes her elbow, and she takes a step closer. When she turns her head, his face, his mouth, is very close to her, tantalizingly so. They've kissed in elevators undercover. Joked about it at the Academy, but it's never happened as themselves. 

If she kisses him right now, she can blame being drunk, and tired. They can write it off as a night of foolishness. Melinda leans closer, meeting his gaze. He's hesitant, he'll never- so she closes the distance. His lips press warm against hers and the world doesn't end. He touches her waist, pulling her closer and his tongue touches her lips, parts them and he presses her back towards the wall of the elevator. 

She gasps, sighing into his mouth. His hand tangles in her hair and the elevator dings. No one's there so they finish kissing, stumbling out into the hall only when the doors start to close. 

Her room is four doors down and the keycard slides into the door as she presses him up against it. He holds her tight around the waist and they stumble in. They drop their bags on the floor, unwilling to let go of each other even long enough to turn on the lights. The curtains are open and they can see enough. She tugs his shirt, pulling it up over his head. His left hand remains in the black glove, but it's still warm as he touches her stomach. 

"Wait."

He strops, hands on her hips. "You okay?"

"We need--"

He kisses her neck, nibbling up towards her ear. "To talk?"

"Condoms."

"Check the drawers, there's often some somewhere." 

She strips off her pants, leaving them on the floor before she searches the bathroom. "Nothing."

"Dammit." He's quiet for a moment, opening drawers. "Got them, just under the Bible." 

She smiles up at the ceiling, thanking whatever travels left them behind. "Is the size okay?"

"They're fine." Phil steps out of his jeans, and she can't pull her eyes away from his tight boxer briefs. 

"I have more good news," she teases, tearing open one of the condoms.

"Oh?"

"This bra doesn't have a clasp." 

"How thoughtful." 

She rolls his boxers down his hips, rubbing her stomach against his. Phil tugs her bra over her head and she runs her fingers along the back of his neck. His artificial hand might be clumsy, so she rolls the condom onto his erect penis, teasing him a little makes him harden in her hands and she wants.

She tries not to let herself want, or need. She doesn't have those kind of relationships, she won't open up, won't trust, and even now her heart pounds. If she was sober, she'd stop herself. Whisky dulls her better senses, softens her control, and she pulls him towards the bed. 

Phil turns her, maneuvering so she'll be on top when they fall to the bed. Melinda kisses him, turning them back. He can be on top. She always guides her one night stands down, rides them until she reaches climax but that's not what she wants from Phil. He's not that. This has to be different. 

"May?"

"I want you on top."

He nods,smiling, then returns to kissing her as if the entire world has ceased outside of this room. Tropical insects hum outside the window and sweat glistens on his chest, mixing with her own. He kisses her breast, licking up towards her nipple. 

"You're sure?" 

She guides his hand along her skin, using his fingers to stroke the wetness between her thighs, and moaning as she guides his hand across her clit. "This is what I want."

Phil takes over, rubbing his thumb across while he parts her thighs. "You've always been who I want."

The pressure on her clit makes her gasp, and he slips his fingers inside, opening her up. It's good enough to make her moan into his neck, pull him down. 

"Then why are you taking so long?" 

"Foreplay."

She rolls her eyes, tugging him closer. "I'm not wet enough for you?"

"You are incredible." He nuzzles her chest, taking the time to cup her breast, to lick and suck and bring her to panting. 

"Then show me." She guides him in, taking him slowly because of his girth. Maybe he was right, because his first thrust is on the exquisite edge between wonderful and sore. She's so full and slick and tight that she clings to him, hands on his shoulders. 

"You okay?"

Nodding, she looks for his eyes, trying to find that connection, convince him she won't break. Of course, he's gentle. She knows him, she just has to make him as desperate as her. Diffing her fingers into his back, she moans again, trailing her teeth across his neck. Shifting her hips, she allows him deeper, squeezing until he gasps. 

"Fuck, May."

"That's what I'm trying to get you to do." She kisses him, rough and demanding. "Harder, please." 

Grabbing her hands, he pins them to bed, holding her down as he thrusts in. Her nerves scream in pleasure, her head spinning. 

"Yes..." 

He thrusts again and she sobs. Words slip away after that. He gets it, realizing how much she's willing to surrender to him. Tonight, she needs to let go, to not be the one on top, not the one holding everything in. He holds one of her hands with his left, and she twists the sheet with the other. His right hand slips down her stomach, caressing and taunting her clit while he finds a rhythm, still slower than she would like, but he might know what he's doing.

Maybe. She'll never admit Phil Coulson has game, but her teeth tingle and her heart pounds and she's laughing, holding him tight while her eyes sting. His stiffens, driven to distraction by friction and wet heat. Can she wait him out? Make him come first? He's less drunkk or just less hurried, but she's always been able to read his tells.

It won't be roughness. It'll be the soft things that make him lose control. She kisses his neck, working her way to his chin and then finds his mouth. Kissing him until he can barely breathe has him on the edge, and looking into her eyes is it. That's his weakness.  Melinda can't think about how much he wants her, or about the depth of emotion sizzling between them as their eyes lock. This is not about love. This can't be. They're just friends who got drunk and--

She can't lie to herself like that. He might not know, but she does. She's here because she loves him, and if things had been different, maybe she would have resisted, fought to keep her feelings down, to keep things professional. 

"Let go," he whispers, rising up to look at her. "I've got you." 

That's unfair. The fingers on her clit soften, circling, and if he'd just press a little harder she'd be there already but he makes her wait. He kisses her, owning her mouth, pressing her body against his. Orgasm arrives softer than she expected, washing over her instead of crashing. She arches up into him, flirting with that moment of oblivion as he thrusts once, and again and when she kisses his neck he follows her, pulsing within. 

He holds her, remains over her, catching his breath as he strokes her chest. "You're incredible."

"Did you doubt?"

Phil shakes his head, slipping out and lying on his back beside her. "I knew you'd be--" he breaks off, laughing. "You're you, May."

"You're not so bad either." 

"High praise indeed." He sits up, stretching his neck. Phil leaves the bed and strips off the condom, tying it before throwing it away. For a moment he stands there, naked in the moonlight and she rolls to her side and watches him pour water into glasses and come back to her. 

Melinda sits up to drink, naked on top of the sheets but it doesn't matter. She'd seen him naked before, of course, but not like this. Not without a mission or some other reason. It's different now, some line between them has been rubbed away. 

Her water has a tropical flower in it and she sniffs it, toying with the bright pink petals. "Are we okay?"

"Finish your water and we will be tomorrow."

She chuckles a little but shakes her head. "Not that."

"Will you be able to keep your hands off me now that you know how fantastic I am in bed, is that the question?" His little smile makes her laugh, really laugh and she takes another sip of her water. 

"You were good."

"Thanks." He cups her cheek, holding her face. "I think we're fine. How I feel about you hasn't changed in years. This is just one more reason you're incredible." 

"Only one?" She finishes her water and leaves the bed for a moment to stretch and use the bathroom. When she returns, Melinda pulls another condom out of the box and holds it up by her mouth. "Don't you want two reasons?"

Phil's eyes widen and his tongue moves inside his lips, teasing her. "May--"

"I'll go slow," she teases. "Very slow."

He blinks, then downs the rest of his glass of water. She tears the condom open and tosses the wrapper aside. 


	3. now - between 3x07 and 3x08

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosalind's chat with Phil gets interrupted. Baby gets a nickname. Melinda tries to say goodbye to Andrew and Daisy helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Descriptions of vomiting.
> 
> Huge thanks to Tina.

_Now_

Phil doesn't know how he's supposed to go back to work after a mission like that, but he's in his office anyway. Melinda fell asleep quickly, though he wishes he'd been able to get her to eat something because an empty stomach makes it so much worse. She teased him about eating in bed but fell asleep almost mid sentence. 

He gets that. He hasn't really had a day like hers since the memory machine and thinking he was dead, or losing a hand. Wanted to sleep for days after that, probably why Mack insisted he go on vacation, which turned into Hawaii and May. Losing the hand might be worth it. He shuffles paperwork on his desk, straightens his pens, moves his things around. He's not being useful, or getting anything done but he can't just sit and watch May sleep. Though, it's tempting. 

He has work. There's always work, it's just that- well- he stops, fidgets with his glove and retreats to the cabinet with the whisky. Can't open the Haig without May, so that means at least eight months, but he has a perfectly serviceable Balvenie that has no emotional attachments. He pours himself a finger and just smells it for a while, looking out the window at the industrial district that surrounds them, he tries to let his mind quiet. 

They were careful, but nothing's foolproof. Accidents become little balls of cells that turn into toddlers. That's a lot to process. He takes a sip and someone knocks. Not May, she wouldn't knock. May shouldn't be up. 

She's all he can think about. 

"Come in."

Rosalind enters, holding her purse. "Do you have a minute?"

"Of course." He waves her in, and tilts his head at the bottle. "Scotch?"

"That kind of day, huh?"

"You could say so." 

Rosalind takes a step towards him, setting down her purse. "Please." 

He pours and hands her a glass. "I'm sorry about your men."

She nods. "I hate making those phone calls."

"Me too." 

She takes a sip, then smiles and takes a bigger one. "Not the peaty kind."

"Fury likes those. Kind of tastes like a bog to me. May doesn't mind them."

"Guess she won't be having any of that for a while." 

"You heard?"

"Heard?" Roz blinks at him. "No, I assumed with the nausea she wouldn't be drinking with you for a few days."

"Oh." Dammit Phil. Walked into that one. Roz has the security clearance anyway. May won't mind. "Actually, you were right."

"I was?" Roz lifts her glass, then it clicks and her eyes widen. "Oh, she's pregnant?"

"Six weeks." He smiles a little. However strange, they're having a baby. Whenever he gets to think about it, his chest aches in the very best way. 

"Is she okay?"

"Lincoln says stress, dendrotoxin, exhaustion, missing a few meals: all of it did a number on her system. She should be all right in a few days."

Roz taps her glass with her finger. "Physically all right, there's the whole--"

"She'll work it out." He takes another sip, nursing his drink. "She'll be a great mom."

"Good."

"She's patient, kind, a great teacher, funny."

Rosalind tilts her head, smiling. "Funny is not how her file makes her sound."

"I'm sure my file makes me sound like a nerd."

"That's entirely possible." She smirks a little. "Your love of historical SHIELD artifacts might be mentioned a few times." 

"Coulson!" Daisy hurries in without knocking. She looks at Rosalind for a second, her expression shifting from afraid to wary, but she continues. "May's awake, I think she's throwing up again, and she's scaring Simmons and Lincoln." 

His chest tightens. He leaves his drink on the desk, starting towards her. "Scaring them?"

"Death glares, death threats, throwing up sucks and she doesn't want --"

They jog down the hall to the bunk rooms. Her door's open and Lincoln stands in front of her bathroom, Simmons and May must be inside. 

"You have to eat something or it's only going to get worse. You're already dehydrated and we'll have to start intravenous fluids if you can't keep something down."

"No."

"I know it feels like the last thing you want to do, but it'll help."

"Just go."

She starts retching again before Simmons can argue further. Phil's acutely aware of how hideous dry heaves are and it hurts to listen to her gasp and choke. 

"Go see if Mack's back yet, he was going to get some things." He touches Lincoln and nods, then rests his hand on Simmons' shoulder. "It's okay."

He sits down on the floor in the space between the sink and the toilet, right next to her. She coughs, then spits, and lifts her head to fix him with one of those death glares, but he's not Simmons so he's not fazed.

"Hey." 

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't--" She stops, shutting her eyes, trying to find her control. Sweat leaves a sheen on her face, and she's far too pale. 

"You should start with crackers." 

"You should leave." Her stare is less effective on him though her tone is sharp enough to make Daisy wince behind them. 

"You don't really want to be alone."

"I do."

He smiles, reaching for her hair. "Someone should hold your hair back." 

Muttering under her breath, she pulls herself up on her knees. "You're not busy?"

"No."

"He was with Rosalind," Daisy says behind him. Shooting him in the back for some reason. "Talking, maybe flirting."

"Phil--" she starts, but then winces again, groaning. 

Phil reaches for her back and she stiffens. "You're mad?"

"Yes."

"He wasn't really flirting," Daisy says. Maybe in some misguided attempt to distract May. "I think she was." 

May spits into the toilet again, glaring at him as if she's about to break his nose. "That means he was." 

Simmons saves him by returning with a paper grocery bag. "Mack brought ginger ale, saltines, some ginger candy."

"Tell him thanks."

"Sir, we really need her to get something in her stomach so she can recover."

"I know, it's okay, give us a minute."

Simmons backs up but Daisy hovers in the doorway. Phil gives her a look, but she doesn't move. It's sweet that she's so protective.

He opens one of the bottles of ginger ale and slides it closer to May. "You're going to drink this."

May shakes her head. "Use up all of your charm on Rosalind?" 

"Very funny."

"I'm not laughing." She shuts her eyes, wincing again and he pats her shoulder. 

"We were talking."

"I know how you talk." Her words are all bite, but she's just mad about being sick.

"How do I talk?"

May shudders, and her control slips. She turns, throwing up again, coughing, spitting out a mouthful of fluid. "You talk too much." 

"Drink."

She wipes her mouth on a towel. "Fine."

"It'll help."

"That's hard to believe."

"Throwing up something is better than throwing up bile."

"I'm aware."

Daisy watches him, eyes soft with concern, but with a little smile of her own, as if to acknowledge that this is flirting. 

"Please?" he offers again and she finally takes a sip. She makes a face, gags, but manages to swallow. "There you go." He doesn't really mean to stare at her stomach, but there's a whole future in there, ruining her night, and in spite of that, he has to smile.

"I hate you."

"That's fair."

Daisy catches his eyes and Phil nods. She finally takes a step back, leaving them alone. 

Phil holds up a cracker and Melinda takes it. Small victory. Chewing it makes her frown, and she nearly gags on it, but she forces it down. "Eat a few of these and we'll try to go back to bed." 

"Not really how I wanted our reunion to go."

He rests his hand on her belly, just for a second and smiles. "I don't know. You brought us a nice surprise." 

She takes a breath, eyes softening, and her smile's so delicate that he wishes he could keep it in his thoughts forever. "You think this is a gift?"

"I think it's incredible." He leans in, kissing her forehead, "I'm so sorry, May." 

"It'll pass."

"I hope so."

"Or I'll kill you."

"I don't blame you., I hate throwing up." He holds up another cracker. "Four more and I'll admit I was flirting."

"Were you?"

"Didn't mean anything by it."

"Uh-huh." She very slowly eats the cracker, as if it's something she's never tasted before.

"You know I'm terrible at flirting." 

"I am aware."

"So--"

"Your panicked face is too much fun." 

"Oh I see how this is going to go." 

She moves, leaning on the wall of the bathroom. Some of the tension has gone from her body, and that's progress. "We were careful."

"We were."

Melinda sighs, shutting her eyes. "I guess condoms don't always work." 

"There's a small chance of failure."

"You've never been lucky."

"Very funny." He passes over another cracker. "Maybe it's your deadly aim."

"I don't know where you got your biology, but aiming isn't on my side of things."

"You were the target?"

"If you want to think of it that way." She sighs, shutting her eyes and reaching out for his hand. "I suppose we practiced enough times."

"It was nice."

"It was." She squeezes his fingers. When she opens her eyes again, that glare is back. "Don't lead her on."

"Me?"

"Did you mention us?"

He has to think. "What part about us would you like to mention?"

She moans, leaning her head back, and everything but her falls away out of his head.

"No, no, you're all right. You're okay." 

Swallowing hard, she nods, taking a minute to calm her stomach. Luckily, this time it works. Moving a little closer, he passes her another cracker. 

"Don't you have another meeting or somewhere to be?"

"There's always another meeting." He lifts his arm, making space for her to slip in beside him. "I can't focus anyway."

"That must be terrible."

He chuckles. "Sorry." Holding her close, he kisses her temple. "I'm sorry this is so awful."

"It's not."

"You've thrown up more times than I can count."

She sighs. "I've had worse hangovers."

"I've seen you have worse hangovers." 

"Some of those were your fault."

"Most," he says, chuckling. "I'm still sorry."

"Good." She curls closer into him, lying her head in his lap. 

He runs his hand through her hair, then rubs her forehead, over and over. "I was in my office, trying to work and all I could think about was you."

"Me or the--" she stops. She's not ready for the word. He's not either.   


"Your co-pilot?"

"Co-pilot? Really?" It's the closest she's been to laughing all day and he'll take it. 

"Yeah, brand new trainee co-pilot, pulling all the horrible barrel rolls that make your stomach jump into your throat." He lets his hand rest on her stomach, just for a second, but she catches it, holds it there. 

"Our co-pilot."

"Yeah. Really terrible on the stick but I bet they're going to be really cute." 

* * *

She's so close to asleep that she doesn't even move when he knocks. 

It's Phil, of course it is. Lincoln already fussed and insisted on vitamins and everyone else is still too afraid of her to bother her.

"May?"

"You can come in but I'm not getting up." 

"No, god, no don't get up." He shuts the door behind him, keeping the light low. He just stands there in front of the door, smiling at her. "Any better?"

"I'm just exhausted now, not nauseated."

"Is that the first time since--"

"It is." She lifts her hand, reaching out for him. 

He crosses to the bed, sitting on the edge by her legs. Phil's already in his pajamas. 

"Are you here to hover or stay?"

"Would that be all right?"

"The latter is fine."

Phil leans down, stroking her cheek. He kisses her, all toothpaste mint and gentle. "I couldn't stop thinking about you." 

"And the co-pilot?"

"Co-pilot won't leave my head either."

"Nor mine." 

He crawls into bed next to her, first lying on his back, then curling into her as soon as she tugs him closer. Phil sighs into her hair. 

"I've missed you."

"Me too."

* * *

She shouldn't go see him. Andrew's still sedated. She'll just stare at his unconscious body and feel bad and there's nothing she can do to help him. Melinda rubs her shoulder. The b-vitamin shot Lincoln insisted on still stings a little but it seems to be helping the nausea. It's not as bad today because she can walk around, but it's still with her, buzzing in the back of her head. 

He offered stronger things, but they'll make her less sharp and she can't risk it. Not while Andrew's still here. She can't relax until he's somewhere safe and no one's in danger from him anymore. Still, it took a significant amount of willpower to get out of bed, even with Phil there to insist she ate before she stood up. He had to catch her when her head spun.

Melinda can hold it in, she's spent years mastering her body. She can put this in a box and function. She has too. She's just going to walk past the containment pod once, and then find something to distract herself with. 

But he's awake, and his eyes follow her. 

The buzzing threatens to become a roar, but she's not going to be sick in front of him. She won't show that weakness. 

"Come to stare at the monster?"

"I came to say goodbye." She folds her arms over her chest, standing as stiffly as she can. It seems to help if she just doesn't move. 

"Where am I going?"

"The ATCU. They're going to put you in stasis-"

"No-"

"You'll be safe, you'll still be you."

"This is me," Andrew says and Lash is in his voice. How quickly is he slipping away? 

"We can't let you kill people."

"So you'll lock me up like an animal?"

"No."

"You say that, but you're out there and I'm the one-" he pauses, and for a second, he sounds like Andrew, "-are you okay?"

"Fine."

He walks to the glass, pressing his hands against it. "You don't look fine. Did I? I didn't hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me." What can she say? "The icer hit me hard."

"I guess so. You look like hell, Melinda."

"Charming as always," she snaps back.

"That's not what I meant." 

"You're a better liar than that." Maybe that's too harsh, but it's not. It's true. 

"Something's wrong."

"It's not your concern."

"Melinda--"

"I am not your concern anymore. You made that clear." 

He winces, shaking his head. "No, that's not fair. I have never given up on you."

"Not fair? You changed. You turned into someone else and you couldn't even return my phone calls. I don't care that you're inhuman. Daisy's inhuman and she's-"

"She's a superhero, I'm a monster." Andrew starts to pace inside the pod, balling his hands into fists. 

"She thought she was a monster and she wasn't. You--"

He cuts her off. "You think I'm a murderer."

"You are."

"No, no, they had to be stopped. It was what I'm meant to do, it's what I've always been meant to do. You should be happy for me."

"Happy?" The word tastes like metal. 

"Haven't I always supported you? Wasn't I there for you when you killed that innocent girl?" 

His words slice through her control, her eyes sting and her stomach twists.  _ Not now, co-pilot, fly level.  _

"What do you want me to say? We're even?"

Andrew returns to the glass, staring at her as if trying to strip her bare. "You did what you had to do, so did I. I don't see why you and SHIELD are punishing me for that. I should get a say on whether I have to go into a coma or not, shouldn't I?"

"You're not thinking straight."

"You just want me gone." He thuds the glass with his fist. "That's it, isn't it? If I'm out of the way then you and-"

"Don't."

"So it's true. You and Phil."

Either she's going to throw up or kill him, or both and she's not sure in what order they're going to happen. "Don't keep talking.."

"You don't think I didn't notice? That I didn't see how close you were when you were married to me?" He punches the wall of the pod and it absorbs the blow but his eyes flash with fury. "All those missions, abroad, together--"

"Don't you dare."

"You think I was so blind? That I was just so happy to have you that I wouldn't notice? All that time together, our family planning...tell me, how close were we to raising his baby?" 

He's not Andrew. Andrew would never say these things. Andrew wouldn't try to wound. This is all Lash and he's out for blood. That doesn't take the sting away. Doesn't change the stab of agony that he doesn't trust her, that she'd ever betray him like that. 

"We are not having this conversation." She turns, ready to walk away. 

"Go on, leave. That's what you're good at." 

That's not worth answering.

"The Cavalry was so afraid of the truth that she rode out of her marriage like the devil was behind her." 

Maybe he was. Was this in him all the time? Were these thoughts inside of him while they were together? 

She can't believe that. She can't listen. She has to walk away while she still can. Lash isn't going to see her weakness. It doesn't matter if she collapses around the corner, she'll be out of sight. 

Her eyes are full of tears and she has to hang onto the wall but she's still upright enough to slam into Daisy.

"Sorry." Daisy pulls back but then something changes, something shifts in her eyes and she reaches out, grabbing her arms. "Hey."

She should step back but she doesn't have that strength, not right now. Melinda takes Daisy's arms, holds her, hangs on while the world swoops and dives. 

"Come on," Daisy walks her back, guiding her away from Andrew. Melinda's shaking, trembling from the effort of holding back tears and Daisy just holds her. 

"It's okay." She folds her in, hugs her. Melinda remains standing only because of Daisy's strength; her stubborn insistence on caring. "I heard, and I'm so sorry."

She heard? 

"May, it's okay."

"It's not that he's inhuman, it's not that, Daisy, I don't want you to think I-"

"What?" Daisy blinks, confused.

"You're like a daughter-" Melinda can't finish the thought, her mind's racing too fast. "I don't, you have to know I don't--"

"Take a breath." Daisy's hand rests on her stomach, just like Phil's was but she knows something and her voice sharpens. "You're freaking mini May out so you need to take a breath." 

"Mini May?"

"I can feel their heartbeat and it just sped way up so you need to calm down."

Melinda shuts her eyes, trying to force herself calm through brutal will. She knows how to breathe, she can do this. Find the center. The horizon. Breathe.

"Yeah, so it's totally weird, like this rapid little flutter and I didn't know what it was and then it just hit me because it's a heartbeat but it's not your heartbeat and that's really weird. It's like a hummingbird trapped inside of you."

She almost smiles. Trapped in some strange limbo between hysterics and livid anger, there's Daisy and her sweet--

"Coulson and I have been calling it co-pilot."

"Co-pilot?" Daisy uses her sleeve to wipe some of Melinda's tears away. "I like that."

"Mini May's pretty funny though."

"Yeah, I-" She stops, shrugs. "I know it's a lot for you to get used to, like I can't possibly imagine but uh, it's a lot for us too."

"Must be."

Daisy releases a little more of the death grip on her arm, smiling as relief lights her face. "There, there it slowed down. Good job."

"That was you, Daisy."

"Me? I'm just being really too touchy right now and you don't like that and I should just back the fuck up but I really don't want you to faint again because that was kind of scary and Coulson's probably talking to the president right now and--"

"I'm fine."

Daisy rolls her eyes and Melinda sees Phil in every part of her face. "You're really not fine."

Melinda shuts her eyes and takes another breath. "Kitchen. You can make me sit down and make tea."

That idea takes the worry out of Daisy's face. "That's what Coulson would do."

"Yes."

"Let's do that then." Daisy's hand falls from her belly and she sighs. "I'm sorry, I really don't know how to do this."

"You're doing great, Daisy."

"I'm rambling and hugging and probably pissing you off."

"No." Melinda pats her shoulder. "Rambling and hugging is kind of Coulson's thing too, I'm used to it." 

"Does he piss you off?"

"All the time."

Daisy laughs, touching her back before she pulls her hand away again. Melinda stops walking and reaches for Daisy's hand. Without a word, she squeezes her fingers in thanks. 

  
?s=20?s=20


	4. episodes 3x08 and 3x09

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melinda and Phil talk about her going on missions. He gets a truth from Rosalind and reveals his own. Melinda finds doctors frustrating. Ward looks for revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your support for this story! I love it. Many thanks to Tina and Nicole for their help. 
> 
> Ward is a bastard.

"You don't have to fly this mission." Phil drops a folder to his desk, grabs another one and flips through it before setting it aside. 

"You have a better pilot?" 

He grabs another folder, checking the pile of paperwork. "Not better, but we do have others."

Melinda smiles, then pulls herself up on the desk, resting her feet on the chair. "It's not a combat op." 

He signs off the requisition forms Mack needed and circles the desk. "Could be."

"It won't. I'll be with Lincoln anyway." 

"And he's a doctor so it's fine?"

She reaches for him, touching his arm. "I'll be fine."

Phil touches her chin, lifting her eyes. He studies her. She's still pale, and there are dark circles beneath her eyes that weren't there in Hawaii. If she says she can fly the mission, she can. He should let her or he'll never hear the end of it. 

"All right, I would like your read on Lincoln in the field."

"See, it's useful for you," she opens her legs, pulling him in closer. "I'll write you a very detailed report." 

"You always do." He leans in, kissing her lightly. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." Resting her hands on his waist, she pulls him in and kisses him with much more intensity. 

Holding her face, he chuckles. "You are feeling better."

"B vitamins." Melinda kisses him, running her tongue over his lips. She tilts her head, letting him in deeper and with his eyes closed he can almost forget their in his office and not somewhere more fun. "Eating all the time seems to help too."

"Mack suggested that?"

She nods, touching his chin. "He was very kind."

"He has that mother hen thing you accuse me of." He kisses her forehead, then her cheek. He'd love to keep her in his office all day, take off her simple blue t-shirt and explore her body, kissing his way down-- but they have work. Missions to plan and execute and it's not vacation.

Even if kissing her feels like it. 

"Daisy was pretty worried too."

"Did you tell you she can feel co-pilot's heartbeat?" Melinda stops kissing him and grabs the little container of pretzels.

Phil smirks at her. "She mentioned. I've been replaced with pretzels?"

"Kissing you is wonderful but it doesn't seem to help."

"Eat," he says, patting her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"I am too." If she can joke, she's all right. "Daisy fusses almost as well as you."

"Good. If I'm going to be stuck talking to the president, I want someone to look after you."

"I'm all right."

"You'd say that after throwing up eight times." He circles the desk again, remembering that he needs to sign off on the quinjets and Bobbi and Hunter's undercover personas for the mission in an hour. 

"I'd be fine." She turns and holds out a pretzel.

Phil takes it, grinning. "So you're just going to eat constantly?"

"If it works, absolutely."

"I remember you always snacking at the Academy." 

"Our conditioning classes were brutal. I was so hungry."

Phil signs three more forms and puts them in the folder to go to accounting. "I remember the bruises."

"See."

"Try not to get bruised today."

"Aye, sir." Melinda slips off the desk, taking her pretzels and going to collect everyone for the briefing. 

"May-"

She stops right before the door, turning.

"Daisy feels co-pilot's heartbeat?" She said, and he forgot, and when his brain processes it, he has to ask. "Is that good?"

"I suppose it's a vibration." Melinda looks down, more at her boots than her stomach. Her muscles will probably keep it flat for months yet. "When I got upset, co-pilot could feel it."

"Co-pilot's far too young to feel it, May. It's just reacting to hormones, cortisol, your heart rate increasing...you weren't scaring it or something like that."

"It made it seem so real, Phil."

"It is real."

"Throwing up is one thing. Getting dizzy, all of that could just be a bad concussion, it's not a person."

"Daisy talking about co-pilot makes them sound like a person."

Melinda smiles down at her stomach before meeting his eyes. "She calls her Mini May."

"That's adorable."

"I know." She takes a breath, letting her shoulders relax. "I'll be careful today, and we can talk about what missions I can take and which ones I should let Bobbi do instead. Lincoln and Simmons should weigh in."

He leaves his desk, reaching for her hands. "We should take you to a doctor, a real obstetrician, just in case, get it all checked out."

She squeezes his hands. "Know any?" 

Chuckling, he shakes his head. "I'll have to look. Can't say I've been to one lately, or, ever."

"Family planning wasn't your thing."

"Hey." He lifts her chin, looking into her eyes. "It is now. It is one hundred percent my thing."

She kisses him, soft and warm, the lingers, her face close enough to his that he's lost in her eyes. "Thank you." 

* * *

Giving Rosalind a tour of the base and planning on locking her in the confinement room is a little mean, but she can handle it. Talking to her about SHIELD trivia and the highlights of the playground takes only a little of his mind. Too little, because Phil keeps worrying about Melinda and Lincoln in the quinjet, but she's right. She's fine. It's a retrieval, not a combat op, and co-pilot's barely more than a handful of cells. If it hadn't been for Andrew and the Icer, they might not even know she was pregnant. 

Trying not to worry isn't much better than just worrying, and it's only slightly less effort. While he takes Rosalind around the base, he tries to grapple with the problem with her and the ATCU. Rosalind knows about Tahiti, and that's buried deep. She doesn't know anyone in SHIELD, that's come up, so anyone else who knows at this point is Hydra. 

The phone call from her IT team arrives just when he thinks it will and she smiles at him, flirting. May will give him bruises later for flirting back, but it's necessary. Flirting is disarming, keeps people from paying attention to their surroundings. 

He seals the room when they reach the confinement area and holds the controls. There's no malice, he just needs to know. 

"Who told you about Tahiti?"

Rosalind looks at him, then back at the display showing how they're locked in. "What are you doing?"

"Only a very few people in SHIELD knew about Tahiti, and most of them are dead. You know, and you don't know anyone in SHIELD. That leaves Hydra." 

"Phil--"

"I'd rather you weren't Hydra."

Rosalind seems truly offended, and that's a good sign. "I'm not."

"But I can't be sure."

"You think I haven't been honest with you?" She maintains her composure, but she's pissed. That's a good sign, or she's a good actress. 

"I'm fairly certain." 

"Oh?"

"I have operatives in the ATCU right now, and you're not trying to cure inhumans, you're making them."

"That's not true."

"Enhanced specimen control?"

She takes a step back. "That's too dangerous, no one's allowed on that floor."

"You haven't even been in the room?"

"No, of course not." 

Either she's a good actress, better than most, or she genuinely doesn't know. Rosalind takes a breath, looks away and then looks back at him. "Malick told me about Tahiti."

"Gideon Malick?"

"He's an old friend, a mentor. He's always been so helpful for my career. When I said I was working with you, he told me what happened."

Phil takes that in, contemplating. Someone with Malick's resources would certainly be a very powerful part of Hydra, and if he knows...he must be. 

"Okay."

"Okay? Okay like you're not going to keep me prisoner in your secret base?"

"Yes, just like that." He taps the controls and she's free. "I need you to tell me everything Malick knows."

"That'll be a long conversation."

"Since you're not Hydra, You can have a drink." He points towards his office and Rosalind starts walking.

"Are you going to poison it?"

"No more than usual," he says, trying to keep his tone light. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not forgiving you yet." 

"That's fair." They walk in silence through the corridors, closing in on his office. "How's Agent May?" she asks as they step in through the door.

"Better, thanks."

"I know I'm an evil Hydra operative."

"Didn't say that."

Rosalind sighs, and pulls a card out of her purse. "I imagine SHIELD doesn't have obstetrics, and it doesn't seem like your team has much time to get out and take care of personal things. This is my OBGYN, she has a space on her case load for Agent May, and her security clearance is high enough that Simmons and Lincoln would be able to share things if they needed to."

Phil takes the business card and smiles, genuinely touched. "That's very kind of you."

"I figured you wouldn't know one."

"I don't, and I appreciate this. May will too." He puts it into his pocket. "We were just talking about it, actually."

"You two are pretty close."

"She's been my best friend for decades." He takes out the whisky and pours them each a little. "My right hand." 

"Good thing she's not the left."

"She'd never leave me." He smiles, maybe a little too much, because Rosalind stares at him, tilting her head.

"Phil, is that a crush?"

"Oh, wow, maybe for decades."

"I can see it. She's gorgeous."

"And intimidating."

"Very much so," Rosalind agrees, taking a sip. "But Andrew?"

"They divorced a few years ago. Working together seemed to bring them closer, then he just stopped talking to her."

"The term is ghosted. Makes sense if he was busy murdering inhumans."

"Still, it's kind of you to step in."

"Step in?" Phil asks, lowering his glass. "I don't--"

"Holding her hair back, going with her to OB appointments, that's very good of you, as a friend."

"As a friend," he repeats, then finishes his whisky. That's why she flirted with him. She doesn't- well, he hasn't-- Oh dear. 

"What?"

"May and I-" he starts, then pauses, licking his lips as he searches for words. "Right before you and I met, I'd just lost my hand. I was exhausted. Mack insisted I take a vacation, and May was going to Hawaii with Andrew, we've been friends, we could share a flight, save time, and then Andrew didn't come."

"So you went to Hawaii, with Agent May, your best friend, alone, and had a good time? Maybe too good a time with--" Rosalind holds her empty glass up to him and taps it. "I feel like I'm going to need another to make up for my embarrassment."

"I wasn't clear."

"Spies rarely are." Rosalind shakes her head. "I should have known you'd be taken."

"I'm--" he can't even protest that. "Very much spoken for."

"And the baby?"

He blushed a little. "Our co-pilot."

Rosalind smiles, and her eyes light up for the first time in awhile. "That's sweet."

"Not too dorky?"

"Expecting parents are allowed to be dorky."

"Ah. Good." He tugs at his jacket. "We weren't trying."

"May's surprise seemed to make that clear."

"The box must have been faulty."

"It would appear so." Rosalind paces a little, looking at his SHIELD artifacts. "It's good, a relief actually."

"Good?" That's an odd way to look at the abrupt end of their flirtation. 

"If co-pilot's yours, she doesn't have to worry about inhuman genes."

Phil sighs in relief and nods. "Yeah, that's something we're grateful for."

"Still, in your line of work, with both of your positions. It's going to be hard."

"I know." 

Rosalind circles back, studying one of the prototypes for a boot camera on his wall. "Let me know if I can help."

"Thank you."

"I know how hard it is to have a life and a normal intelligence job. Having a paranormal one has to be much worse."

"You don't have much of a life."

"I don't. " She finishes her whisky and sets down the glass. "Doesn't mean I can't help you have one."

"It's appreciated."

"Besides, there's something pretty romantic about  _ decades _ ."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"I am, yes."

"Oh, great."

"Agent May's very attractive. I wouldn't have been able to resist her somewhere romantic like Hawaii."

And this might actually be the beginning of a worthwhile friendship with her. 

"It was beautiful. She was- is-" He shakes his head, smirking. "Sorry."

"Be good to her, she's been through a lot. And that's just the part of her file I can read."

He lifts his glass.in a silent pledge and drinks. "We should talk about Malick."

"I still can't believe he's Hydra."

"That's how they get you. One of the agents I trained with, someone I've known as long as I've known May, he was Hydra. Tried to kill me."

"Kind of a running theme with you."

"It is, unfortunately." He takes a moment, looking out the window to think. "We know about Malick and he doesn't know. We can use that."

"How?"

Phil shrugs. "I don't know yet but it's an opportunity we need to make the most of."

* * *

"How can the answer just be deal with it?" Melinda complains, holding on to the edge of the bench. She wraps her fingers tight, as if hanging on will make her stomach settle. "Doctors always want to give you something. Morning sickness has been around for centuries and the answer is still, deal with it?"

"You never take it."

She glares at him, but regrets moving her head.

Phil rubs her back, his hand traveling in slow circles. "I'm sorry." 

Melinda shuts her eyes. The air feels little like fall, and the temperature helps. 

"There were good parts," he reminds her, always the optimist. "She said you're very healthy, co-pilot's in good shape, and I liked getting to hear co-pilot's heartbeat." 

That was reassuring, and almost made up for all the blood they took and the discomfort of an internal exam. She's never been a huge fan of any doctors, though they serve their purpose. The OB-GYN has a purpose, but it's hard to be so vulnerable. 

"Thanks for coming."

"Hey," he pauses, kissing her cheek, sounding almost offended. "I'm in this."

She nods, leaning into him. "I liked the heartbeat."

"And hey, ultrasound next time."

"Co-pilot's just going to look like a gremlin."

"Our gremlin."

She hates him as much as she adores him, and she's not really going to admit the latter yet. It's too soon. Melinda finds his hand and wraps her fingers into it. Holding on to him is better than the cold stone of the bench.

"Should I get you something?" he asks after they've sat for a while in silence. 

"Nothing helps."

"Pretzel worked yesterday, did you eat them all?" 

Melinda lifts her head experimentally, and she doesn't throw up in the street, so that's something. "I tried eating before we went in, and it didn't help."

He digs in his jacket pocket and takes something out. Phil unwraps one of those damn ginger candies and passes it over. 

"I hate these."

"They might help."

"I don't like it when ginger is sweet."

"I know." His hand starts rubbing circles again and his patience is the best reason not to throw up on his shoes. She stares at the sidewalk, focusing on the meandering crack leading to the square around the small tree, just starting to turn orange. 

She tries to suck on it instead of chewing, even though if she chews it'll be gone faster, but she hates it. Her mouth stings and it's too sickly sweet and she lifts her head, looking for the nearest garbage can, just in case. It's probably twenty feet away and if they stand up now, she might not throw up in the storm drain. That feels more civilized, somehow.

"Phil--"

He stands, offering his hands to help her up. "Twenty feet that way," he says. He already knew where it was. Of course he did. "It's okay, no one's watching."

Wouldn't matter if they were, she has absolutely no control over this. 

"Remember when you were so calm during the G-training exercises and everyone else was throwing up? Even Victoria, who was always so together." He holds her, guiding her towards the garbage can. She can smell it from ten feet away and if forgotten hot dogs, sickly sweet street trash and rot won't just send her over the edge. Maybe she can just throw up and get it over with. She tenses, ducks a little, and he reaches for her hair, preemptively pulling it back behind her shoulders. 

She doesn't throw up.

Something slams into her shoulder, hot and intense. How can her shoulder hurt? Nothing's wrong with her shoulder. 

Phil's face says otherwise, because she's rarely seen him that terrified. Something hot runs down her stomach, and she coughs, not vomiting, but something's wrong.

She's been shot. 

It takes her mind far too long to put that together. It went through, because Phil has his hands on both sides of her shoulder, pressing so hard that it hurts. Everything hurts. High powered sniper bullet. Something far away. 

"Hang on," he says, unnaturally calm. "You're all right." He doesn't mean that. He's so afraid that his voice shakes. 

She opens and closes her mouth, but it tastes like blood and her voice isn't working. Her vision starts to grey out along the edges and her knees hit the pavement. He's still holding her, talking, but she can't hear him, just blood rushing in her ears.

Hang on, he said.  _ Hang on little co-pilot, stay with us, I'm sorry. _ His eyes are too blue against the sky. That's the last color she can see. Then it's black, hot and cold and his hands on her wound are the last thing she holds on to. 


	5. 3x09

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma looks after May, Daisy tries to track Ward using Coulson's phone, Rosalind stays up late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst, but hopefully it makes up for the cliffhanger. Huge thanks to Tina and Nicole.

Lights twirl in warning on the ceiling and it seems like all the klaxons on the base are on at once. Jemma knows it's just the security lockdown warning and the warning for incoming wounded but it seems like everything. Her nerves are already shot and it's only been seventeen minutes since Coulson called.

Bobbi's went pale and the friendly game of pool stopped and everyone reacted. Daisy, Bobbi, Hunter- they got weapons, talked about how to defend the base if Ward was coming for the rest of them. He potentially knows where it is if he got this close.

Jemma and Lincoln prepped for surgery. Lincoln's skills as an ER doctor come in invaluable, and Jemma stills her racing heart reminding herself that surgery is just biology. It's mending the human form back into order, repairing chaos. Try not to think about how much blood she's lost or if the fetus can survive the surgery and the trauma of the gunshot wound.

May's very tough. She'll hang on. The foetus will too. She stands with Lincoln on the loading dock as Mack pulls in with the van. The engine's still running when he leaps out and Coulson follows him and the air smells like blood. Coulson and Mack lift May onto the stretcher and Lincoln checks the wound. 

"Single gunshot wound to the shoulder, high caliber, sniper rifle. Fairly clean."

"Blood pressure's eighty-two over forty, heart rate ninety-six, we have four pints of O positive in reserve, five O negative and we can check the base population after that."

"The field hemostatic seems to be holding, respiration is slightly elevated but lung sounds are clear."

Jemma glances at Bobbi, who nods, relieved. She lost most of a lung, but it seems Agent May will be more fortunate. 

"She's stable enough for surgery." 

Lincoln and Bobbi take the gurney and Jemma waits with Coulson and Mack. Mack rubs drying blood from his hands onto a cloth and Coulson's too shell-shocked to do anything about the blood staining his clothes. 

It'll be a few minutes before Lincoln's ready and Coulson needs to be able to process what's happening. May's his best friend. She nearly bled out in his arms. 

"Agent May is fairly stable, the sunshot seems unlikely to have penetrated her lung and it's above the peritoneal cavity. You and Agent Mack got her here quickly and performing first aid in the van may have saved her life."

"Ward shot her."

"I'm so sorry, Sir."

"He called," Coulson holds up his bloody mobile phone and Daisy takes it without hesitation.

"I'll run a trace, see if we can."

"He shot her in the street, Daisy."

"He's evil."

"She was just-" he takes a breath, pausing. Adrenaline must still be coursing through him but there's nothing he can do now but wait. "She just kept bleeding."

"She's going to be all right. Lincoln's very good at repairing gun shots and she's very tough. She heals well."

"And the--?" he can barely ask, and saying it out loud has been hard for all of them.

"The trauma was nowhere near her uterus and her blood pressure's been fairly stable, considering, there's always the chance of infection but it's likely the chances of miscarriage are low at this point, sir."

"It means a lot to her."

"We know, sir. We'll be careful." Jemma touches his shoulder, wishing she could do more. She knows they're close, and it's obvious he cares so much about this baby, even though it's not his. "You should get cleaned up, as soon as she's awake, we'll call you."

"I have to find Ward," he says, shaking off her hand. "He has to be stopped." Coulson's voice is too level, too still, almost as if he's talking about paperwork, not the evil Nazi who shot his best friend. 

"You can find him better after you've changed clothes and had a shower." 

Mack's radio crackles and he nods to Jemma. "Lincoln's ready for you. I'll look after the director."

"No, I can't be the director right now. I'm not-" Coulson pauses, looking at Mack with cold eyes. "You're director, until further notice. I'm compromised."

"All right." Mack holds up his hands, keeping his voice calm. "Then you need to shower, and we'll debrief you, check your phone records, figure out how we're going to stop Ward."

"We need to say she's dead."

Jemma waits, staring at Coulson in shock. "Dead? We need to say Agent May is dead?"

"If she'd alive, he won't keep looking." Coulson removes his jacket, then takes off his bloody shirt, standing in front of them in just a bloody vest vest top. "I'll shower, contact Rosalind at the ATCU, see if they can author a press release, or leak it to Malick. Highly decorated SHIELD agent killed by lone sniper. Say we suspect Hydra, let him think he won."

Mack nods, and Jemma starts to walk away. "Okay, we can do that."

"I want him to be gloating, he'll drop his guard." Coulson's tone is so dark it's almost frightening. "Then we cross him off."

* * *

Daisy almost forgets to clean the damn phone before she plugs it into her laptop. Cleaning the blood (May's blood, don't keep thinking about how it's May's blood) off the phone reminds her to wash her hands and she stands over the sink for too long, staring at May's blood running pink down the drain. She's okay. Simmons and Lincoln are incredible, they have SHIELD tech, she'll be fine.

But Ward shot her. 

She didn't have Coulson put in his password. She should go ask, but she tries "Steve Rogers" then some other variations, and finally she takes the damn thing and goes looking for him. Mack's in the director's office, not Coulson, talking to Rosalind of all people. 

"Here's a draft of the press release."

"You have to hint that she's important, I like the line about highly decorated, lifelong SHIELD agent. He'll know that's her." Mack looks up from the tablet at Daisy. "How can I help?"

"I need the password for Coulson's phone. Do you know where he is?"

"Don't just want to hack it?"

"Guy's been through enough."

"Try Wailea," Rosalind offers. Mack nods, smiling a little.

"What?"

"He went there with May, on his vacation."

"Wait, they went together?" 

Rosalind smiles, and there's something hidden in it, something secretive. For someone who was flirting with Coulson like yesterday there's something really weird about the way she smiles at the idea of Coulson and May on vacation.

"I thought she went with Dr. Garner."

Mack takes a moment, looking down at the tablet in his hands like he does when he's hiding something. "Nope, uh, Dr. Garner never showed up." 

Daisy holds up Coulson's phone and tries it. That works, and then she's in. "Uh thanks, I'll be back when I've traced Ward. Hopefully Coulson kept him on long enough."

"He would have. He's smart."

She leaves Mack and Rosalind talking about how to fake May's death (really that's not okay on any level) and heads back to the lab and her computer. Coulson's phone gives up the information she wants fairly easily. Ward was about a kilometer away when he took the shot. That's cold, and awful. May never takes any time for herself and all they were doing was going to the damn obstetrician and Ward--

Fuck him, just fuck him and why isn't he dead? 

Wait, if he went with May to Hawaii, are there pictures? Did they take selfies? Do they even know what that is? 

She forces herself to concentrate, find the carrier signal that goes to Ward's phone. Trace it, figure out where he is now. She tasks the SHIELD servers with finding him and goes back to his phone. She shouldn't, but she looks. Most of the pictures on Coulson's phone are boring. Paperwork, old SHIELD things, a couple sunsets, a nice tree. Really? 

Then there's Hawaii, beautiful sandy beaches, part of a leg. Does May have a tattoo? She wouldn't but that's a SHIELD tattoo on an ankle. 

And there's one perfect picture of May, looking off into the distance on a beach. Her hair's perfect (it's always perfect, but damn) and she's just wearing this pretty white cover up thing over a bright red bikini and she looks so happy. Is this what she was like before? Did she laugh like she does undercover? Are they like that alone? This isn't the kind of picture you take of your best friend. 

Nor is May in a dress, laughing with a flower in her hair, or May smiling. She can smile like that? Daisy's never seen it, she can't even imagine it, but there she is, captured on Coulson's phone, smiling like she's in love.

With Coulson?

No.

But there they are, together, smiling at the sunset, arms around each other, holding hands, laughing. Some of the photos are so intimate that she stops. These aren't for her. These are theirs. 

She has to find him. She shuts his phone, leaves it on the desk and goes looking for Coulson. He's exactly where she expected to find him, sitting on a chair next to May's bed as Simmons and Lincoln fuss with her IV and check her vitals.

She lies there, unconscious, asleep, and she could be fine except that she's a little pale, and too still. Daisy had only seen her iced before, unconscious when she'd been knocked out. Beat up, not shot, not in danger, not pregnant.

"Is she--?"

"She's doing great," Simmons says, smiling and full of hope. "Lincoln did a great job repairing her shoulder. It'll be sore and it'll take some physical therapy to regain full range of motion, but she'll be fine."

"And?"

"And the fetus is fine too," Lincoln adds. "We were just going to check." They pull up May's hospital gown, covering her legs with the sheet and exposing her stomach. They rest something on her belly and that faint little hummingbird vibration fills the room, whooshing. 

Coulson hasn't moved. He just sits there, ignoring all of them while he looks at May. Then they find the baby and something breaks inside of him, that stillness shatters and he smiles, just for an instant and it's so painful to watch that Daisy's stomach knots. 

"Co-pilot's okay," Daisy says, circling the bed to touch his shoulder. "And May's okay."

"She's tough, seems like they both are." Simmons moves the machine and the heartbeat stops. May's is still on the monitor, slow and steady. "She'll be unconscious for several hours yet, due to the anesthesia, we've given her a strong does of antibiotics which should hopefully prevent any infection, but we'll need to be careful and monitor her. I know she doesn't like being in medical so we'll need your help, sir."

Coulson nods, and he blinks, then nods again. "Of course. Good work, both of you."

"We care about her too," Simmons reminds him. "Of course you can stay here for as long as you need."

Lincoln circles the bed and touches her back, reminding her he's there, but she has to be here for Coulson first. They leave them alone and it's just her and Coulson, watching May sleep.

"You went to Hawaii together," she starts, standing next to him. 

Coulson reaches out and takes May's hand, folding her fingers into his. He leans forward in his chair, touching her fingers to his cheek. "I was just trying to avoid flying coach again. Andrew decided not to go."

"So it was just the two of you, somewhere romantic."

"It wasn't like that."

"Those beautiful beaches?"

""It was nice."

Nice doesn't even cover the way May was looking at him in those pictures. You don't smile like that if you're being nice. 

"We were happy." 

"Yeah, trip to Hawaii does that."

"Toledo with her would have been fine. Indianapolis. Siberia." Coulson kisses May's fingers and looks at Daisy, utterly lost. "We--"

"Co-pilot is yours, you and hers. Not Andrew's."

It's so quiet Daisy can feel all of their breath. 

Coulson nods, lowering his head to the bed for a moment. When he lifts it, tears fill his eyes and break, running down his face. "She's wanted a baby for years, before Bahrain. She and Andrew were trying and I thought I'd watch her, them. She'd be a mom and I'd be her partner and we'd be what we always were. I didn't need kids. I had SHIELD."

"Then Hawaii happened."

"And co-pilot and suddenly we were doing it, together, and it- god, Daisy, I've never wanted anything the way I wanted that." He takes a breath, his hand shaking when he touches his hair. "Want. The way I want to do this with her."

"You will, she's fine."

"He tried to take her."

"Because he's a fucking Nazi jackass."

Coulson trembles, balling his hands into fists with the sheets of May's bed. "I need to cross him off."

"Okay."

"He needs to die."

"I'll find him, we're close. We'll stop him." She touches the back of his hand, and his fist relaxes, just a little. "He won't hurt anyone else."

"If she'd--"

Daisy can't imagine. Coulson, dorky, nerdy, Coulson, who always cares, is talking about murder with no regret in his eyes, if May was dead, if they'd lost the baby-- They wouldn't be sitting here. They'd be hunting him down already. 

"She's okay. They're okay."

Coulson takes another breath, then he smiles, soft, and that's the person she looks up too. That's the real him. "We should have said something, I didn't realize you'd all--"

"Think she was having a baby with her ex husband not her best friend? Can't imagine why we'd think that." Daisy touches his wrist and he opens his hand, letting her hold his. "Did you tell anyone?"

"Mack, Rosalind."

"Bet that stopped the flirting."

"She was nice, Daisy, is nice. She's helping."

"Well, that's the least she can do." Daisy touches May's hand, surprised by the warmth of her skin. May's hands are usually cold, but she's wrapped up here. "I thought there was something."

"I love her," Coulson says, stripped of everything. "I've been struggling to find the words, neither of us can say baby, but holding her, trying to stop the bleeding, I love her. I can't lose her."

"You didn't."

"It was close, Daisy. It was way too damn close. We sign up to lose each other, but not her. I can't."

"It's okay."

He turns, just a little, and then they hug, tight and desperate because they almost lost that little bit of hope. They almost lost May, and without her things just aren't-- There's no SHIELD without May, without Coulson, there's just not.

"We'll find him." They'll end him. 

* * *

Her left hand still works. Her fingers move slow, sluggish to respond, but all of them work. She's stuck in that foggy morphine feeling that she hates, so that means surgery, and it smells like medical. Her senses fade in slowly, the taste of over filtered air, the itchy hospital gown, the way her tongue feels like it hasn't been used in days. Hopefully it hasn't been that long, but there's no way of knowing until the morphine wears off a little. Her body doesn't even feel hers.

Her hand moves, must have twitched enough for someone to take it. Cool fingers, small, like her own, not Phil's. Where is he? Is he all right? Did the sniper get him too?

"Phil?"

"He's all right, your, what did he call it, your co-pilot is all right too. Sturdy little one."

Her hand tightens in the sheet, reaching for her belly. She hasn't let herself be sentimental, but co-pilot has a heartbeat. They're right there. 

And they made it. Even before opening, her eyes sting.

You're all right," the voice says, all gentle. "Though he said you wouldn't ask."

"What...happened?" Her throat aches and her eyes hurt and it doesn't matter how much her shoulder is going to hurt. 

"Sniper, single shot, Lincoln said it was clean."

"You're sure about-"

"Co-pilot? Yeah, we just listened to their heartbeat. I can see it on the monitor."

"You see it?"

"Yeah, they're healthy." The hand on hers tightens, and the voice's other hand rests on top of Melinda's holding her belly with her. "They're doing really well."

Relief burns stronger than the gunshot, and she curls on her side, towards the voice, pulling her knees up to protect the baby. 

"Thank you."

"You kept them safe. You're a great mom already."

Mom isn't her. That's never been her, she can't--

Her eyes are hardly open, yet she's crying, and her chest hurts from the effort. 

"It's all right. It's all right. Phil wanted to be here, and Daisy barely left you, Simmons and Mack and Agent Morse and Hunter and Fitz- they all kept making sure you were okay, that little Mini May here was okay."

The voice pats her head, pulling her hair back, wiping her tears with a tissue. "I know working together makes.you close, but you have a special family."

She takes that in, testing her eyes. They open but it's foggy. They've been shut awhile and she can't stop crying. "Phil?"

"Where?"

"He's hunting down Ward, Ward's the one who shot you-"

She's never hated the way she does in that moment. It burns in her chest, aching "That bastard."

"Phil said he called to gloat."

Melinda wraps her hand in the sheet so tight it stings. "He needs to die."

"They went to stop him, your whole team. It's why you're stuck with me."

Melinda's exhausted brain finally remembers that this is Rosalind. Guess she's over flirting with Phil. 

"Why?"

"Phil didn't want you to be alone, everyone on your team wanted to go cross off Ward, I have no combat skills and I'm good at sitting in hospitals."

Melinda blinks again, rubbing her eyes on the sheet. She can't let go of her belly, not yet, but she can sit up a little. Rosalind touches the control, lifting the head of the bed. 

"When I can walk, combat training," Melinda says, accepting the straw and the water. 

"For me?"

"You can't stick around SHIELD with no combat skills."

"That was a slight exaggeration."

Melinda rolls her eyes. "Training starts as soon as I get out of here."

Rosalind laughs. "All right, all right. Might be easier for me while you're wounded."

"What day is it?" 

"Friday, I think, yes, very early Friday." 

Melinda takes a breath, centers herself and forces her eyes to focus. Medical, recovery, not isolation, that's always good. Only one person moves in the background, a nurse she knows. 

"Where is the Zephyr?" 

"Nearly to Germany by now. Daisy traced Ward's phone to Zepnow. Mack said there's a castle?"

"Hydra."

"They do seem like the dark evil castle type." Rosalind smiles, putting another piece into the puzzle that's covering the table on the side of Melinda's bed. She's dressed in work out clothes, pajamas maybe; an old NSA sweatshirt. 

Melinda watches her, then tilts her head. "Been here long?"

"Your team left about five hours ago. I really like doing puzzles in the middle of the night, I started in the hospital, just to have something to do, and then ever since my husband died, I've had terrible insomnia and it seems to help. When you can sit up, you can help."

"I can sit up."

"Do you want to? Don't rush, it's two-thirty in the morning and there's absolutely nothing to do. Unless you're really good at telling different kinds of fish apart."

Melinda turns her head a little, testing her neck. "Clean through?"

"Pretty clean, Lincoln said. Simmons said you bled quite a bit, but apparently you have almost fifty percent more blood when you're pregnant, which I did not know. You'll be on antibiotics for ten days and Lincoln said it'll hurt."

"That's fine."

"Phil said you'd say that."

Her head can stay up so she can probably sit up. 

Rosalind watches her move and passes her the control for the bed. "Here, but go slowly. Everyone but Nurse Thomas is asleep and I don't want him to come yell at me."

Melinda lifts the bed up, shifting so she can see more of the room. The monitors behind Rosalind have two heartbeats. Her own, still elevated, and a much faster one. Melinda can still hear it in her thoughts, that faint little sound. 

Rosalind passes over her water again. "If I'd been shot I would not be as calm as you are."

"It's hardly the first time." Melinda takes another breath, then wipes her eyes again because she can't stop thinking about their little co-pilot. "Through is good. When the bullet stays in they dig around more."

"That sounds unpleasant."

"It is." She pulls up her sleeve, showing the scar." Phil took this one out the day SHIELD fell."

"No anesthetic?"

Melinda raises her eyebrows. "I hate that."

"When these wear off, you can try something weaker."

"I'll be fine."

"I don't doubt it. Are you hungry? Phil left you these pretzels, and Mack suggested ginger snaps. I hear eating helps."

Nausea is the last thing she needs with fresh stitches, so she accepts a pretzel, very slowly chewing it. "Did he leave you a bullet pointed list?"

"Oh yes, quite detailed." Rosalind tilts her phone towards her. "It's charming."

Melinda stares at her, too exhausted to argue that it's more annoying, but fine. 

"I didn't realize he was so smitten until I saw you together. I knew he was a romantic, he has that in his eyes, but--"

Melinda smiles. "That orange fish is by your left hand."

"What?"

"The fish you've been trying to finish, the last piece is by your left hand, down a little."

"Really?" Rosalind follows her suggestion, picking it up. "I'll be damned."


	6. 3x10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosalind keeps Melinda company while Phil hunts down Ward on a dead planet. (contains canonical major character death)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for your patience, work has been hell. Extra love for Tina, Nicole and Lele for helping me sort my chapter out.

"Hydra has Fitz and Simmons, and they're going to try and bring back an inhuman god from a death world. We have to stop them, save our people, that's your job."

Mack sticks his hands in his pockets. "Coulson--"

"I can't be the director right now, I can't be rational, I can't make choices that aren't selfish."

"Sir--"

"You're director until further notice." 

Mack ceases his protest and nods. "We all want him dead."

"That's all I want."

Mack touches his shoulder, gentle. "May's okay."

"She almost wasn't." 

"But she is."

"There was so much blood--" Phil's right there again, holding Melinda as he tried desperately to stop the bleeding in her shoulder. It took centuries for Mack to arrive and bring her home. Ward won't stop until she dies, or he does. Saying she's dead, letting Ward think he's won for the moment buys them time, but they need to get to him. 

He needs to end the threat, forever. 

"It's okay if you need a minute." 

"I need him dead."

"He's the kind of guy who's somehow makes being a Nazi worse." Mack turns from him and sits in his desk, putting the work Phil's leaving behind in order. It was important this morning. He cared about flight logs and tracing potential new inhumans this morning, now...Mack can have it. He can take it all, the Zephyr, SHIELD, hell, run the world if Phil can keep Melinda safe. 

"Look, I know people say it all the time, and it's annoying, so I won't say I know what you're going through but I have an idea of what you feel. I don't want to say it--"

Phil's read his file, he knows about Hope, and he's touched that Mack brought it up. Co-pilot's barely more than a thought, and he can't imagine losing them. Hope was here, Mack held her, and then she died. "Thanks." 

"I know May's tough, probably the toughest, but--"

"This is a lot."

"Yeah."

"Getting shot is probably normal for her."

"It is."

"Having a baby's not."

"No, that's pretty new."

"Be gentle." 

"Yeah, I got it."

"Keep that in your head too. I know you're angry, you have to protect your family, but don't lose what's important while you're pissed."

"That's not what's happening." 

Mack circles the desk and then leans on it, hands in front of him. "Good. Hold onto her, keep that in your head because that's what you're going home to. Doesn't matter if you get Ward if you don't make it back." 

"Got it."

"Also I don't want to be director any longer than I have to be."

Phil almost smiles. "I hear that."

Daisy determines how to track Ward's phone. She expected it to be impossible, but she finds him at that ancient Hydra castle in England. Whatever Hydra's plan is, it involves the portal and that horrible planet where Simmons was trapped. It's a planet of death, which makes it the perfect place to finish things. 

He almost lost May. He can't stop thinking about that and terror pools in his stomach. Ward's a good shot, probably one of the best. If Melinda hadn't been nauseated, if she hadn't been about to throw up, she'd be dead. The bullet would have gone through her chest, her neck--

Don't think about that. Think about Ward dying. Imagine a bullet slicing through him. The light going out in his eyes. Rage buries the fear but Mack's right. That's not what he needs to focus on. Rage makes people stupid, and he needs to be smart. He needs to be thoughtful, methodical, and leave no chance that Ward can escape. 

He thinks about Melinda, and the steady whooshing of co-pilot's tiny heartbeat. Focus on that. Protection and love, not loathing. Kill to keep them safe.

Don't enjoy it. He grits his teeth and listens to Bobbi and Hunter explain the HALO jump into the woods surrounding the castle. Screw that up and he'll be hanging in the pines. He's read and reread Fitz's notes on that horrible planet. He knows about the no-fly zone and the creature, where the portal's likely to appear. He's as prepared as he can be, considering there's an deadly unknown alien and a team of Hydra operatives, and the traitor. 

He puts on the parachute, rests his head in his hands and pauses, takes a breath. Rage will make him sloppy. Sloppy means dead, and he has to come home. The future's ahead of them. Phil takes another breath, then calls Rosalind. 

"She's asleep."

"Good."

"And healing well, but not very patient."

"I warned you." He can picture Melinda being pissed at being stuck in a hospital bed, but she must be relieved. 

Rosalind chuckles a little. "I can handle grumpy, and your little co-pilot's doing well. Good heartbeat, the doctors say there's no signs of any issues."

Focus on that. Remember the sound of that heartbeat. 

"May's nice, actually. Tries to hide it."

"She does."

"I see what you like about her. She's to the point, funny."

"Yeah?"

"She's going to make me do physical combat training."

"That's probably a good idea."

"When I was a normal spy that wasn't something I worried about."

"Welcome to SHIELD."

Bobbi catches his eye and nods. They're over the castle. 

"I have to go."

"I'll tell May you called."

He should say something else. Tell her he loves her, but she knows. "I'll be home soon."

"That might actually make her smile."

"Thanks."

"Anytime." 

He hangs up the phone and tucks it into a case. He'll be back when she's safe. 

Then they jump. 

Falling and terminal velocity is closer to death than he really prefers to get. May loves it, of course, but she likes airborne adventures much more than he does. Once, over the Seychelles she held the speed so long she was lucky to be over the ocean, but she thought it was fun. 

They did have fun on that mission, when it was over. He remembers the cocktails. 

Ward tried to take that away. He tried to rid the world of May laughing and the touch of her hand on his. He almost took away a child who is going to have her eyes. Phil closes his own eyes and pulls the chute, ready to fall into another place, the planet of death. 

He slips through the portal. His boots hit the dirt and it's blue. Everything is blue here, the rocks, the sky, and the twin moons. Snapping off the chute, he strips off the harness. Bobbi and Hunter didn't make it through. Hopefully they're all right on the other side, maybe they can secure the portal until the Zephyr gets there. 

Take inventory. Plan. Fight smarter. He has a pistol and two knives, no water or food. This has to be quick and then he gets back to the portal. 

He has to make it home. 

* * *

When the morphine wears off, her shoulder throbs, but morphine is too strong. She can't even have ibuprofen, and acetaminophen is the weakest of the painkillers but she can handle that burning pain until it settles down into itching.

"Don't fidget, you'll tear your stitches."

"You are worse than Phil," she mutters, reaching for her water. At least she has her right hand. Eating left handed would be frustrating. 

"It was requested," Rosalind passes over the little dish of ice cream. "You need someone to be cranky at or you'll get bored." She picks up her own spoon. "The food here's better than I thought." 

"Phil gets annoyed when the base food isn't decent, picked that up from Fury." Eating ice cream and waiting to be allowed back to her own bed while everyone else fights Hydra is awful. She hates it, but there's nothing she can do. "How many times did he call when I was asleep?"

"Three." Rosalind pauses, then licks her spoon. "Four, but they were pretty short. He misses you."

"We've been apart for weeks, I thought Ward might try and hurt my father, Hunter and I tried to get Ward and--"

"That's when he used Andrew against you." 

Melinda shifts up a little more, remembering to use the bed controls instead of her muscles. "Andrew was a professor, Ward put a spy in his class."

"To try and kill him?"

She takes another bite, eating makes her feel normal. "The young man's braindead now." 

"Why go after Andrew? What did he do?"

"I made sure Ward killed someone he cared about while he was trying to kill me. She looked like me and I made sure he thought she was me."

"And then he shot her?"

"Multiple times in the stomach. Horrible way to die."

"The way Ward wanted you to die."

She swallows her ice cream and smiles a little. "He really doesn't like me."

"I'm getting that impression, why? What happened? I know he was a traitor but--"

Melinda sighs. "We slept together, first year on the bus. Ward was damaged, he didn't try to talk to me."

"And Phil would have."

"Oh yes."

"So Phil talks a lot in bed?"

"Have to come up with ways to shut him up."

Rosalind laughs instead of looking scandalized and it's nice to have someone to talk to who doesn't see Phil as a father figure. "I bet you're fairly creative." 

* * *

Fitz makes their trail easy to follow. Phil doesn't know if he expects someone from SHIELD or the creature to be after them, maybe Will, the trapped astronaut. He tries to keep his emotions down, think like a predator. Ward will be watching, he'll be wary. If Phil makes a mistake, Fitz is in danger. 

Stay low, use the terrain, listen, use all his senses. He's not a specialist, but he's had the training, he's heard May talk about how to stalk someone through unknown territory. 

Crossing one of the dead ridges of rock, he gets a glimpse of Fitz, Ward and the Hydra team walking along the bottom of a valley. Their camouflage blends in with the blue dirt, only because of the pale light of the lack of the sun. It's a miserable, dead planet, a graveyard of bodies, even cities, from what he can make out in the distance. 

Three Hydra guards follow Fitz. He needs to separate them, get Fitz and Ward alone. Phil tries to think of a distraction, but the sandstorm rising out of the canyon will work perfectly. Phil pulls his goggles over his eyes, checks his sidearm. Fifteen bullets, that has to be enough. The storm advanced over them, and they take cover. Fitz by one rock, the guards splitting up with Ward at the front. If he's careful, and quick, he can get to the guard nearest to Fitz. Pick them off. 

He runs, keeping low, using the rocks. Once he's in the sandstorm, no one will see him. He tries to find that place, the quiet one May gets too. She can kill in a way he's never been good at. He went to the communications side Academy, after all. 

He remembers her laughing when he snaps the first neck. The second Hydra agent hears him and he smashes the side of their head into the rock, once, then again, then he goes limp. Unconscious means dead on this planet and he tries not to think about it. One more, then Ward. 

The last Hydra agent pulls a knife and he punches him in the chest, then the kidney, narrowly misses the knife on his side and snapping his neck feels good. Adrenaline tastes like copper in his mouth and his heart has stopped pounding. It's even and calm. He's a predator. That's who he needs to be. Crawling along the ground, he hides with the sand, stalking Ward, trying to keep Fitz out of sight. 

The sandstorm will affect his shot, he has to be close. The sand also hides him, so he has a chance to get close. Ward's looking for a creature, not a man. 

His first shot clips Ward's shoulder, the second slams into his thigh. Ward turns, shooting back but Phil's closer now. He remembers the scent of blood, the heat of Melinda bleeding out in his hands. 

He throws himself into Ward, crashing him against the rock, and they wrestle. It's ugly and primal and angry, Ward full of rage that Phil got this close, and Phil's defending his family. 

The storm fades, Ward knocks the gun from his hand and Fitz goes for it. Slamming into his face, Ward's fist makes him see stars. Phil turns the knife, little it slip below Ward's ribs before they roll. Ward hits him again but Phil ends up on top. 

"What was it like?" Ward asks.

"What?"

"Watching the light go out in her eyes." He coughs, spitting up blood. 

To their right, Fitz rises up with the gun, training it on Ward. 

"How'd you find us?"

"Rosalind told Malick everything, they're friends. Malick knew her doctor, it was easy after that." 

"Cuff him," Fitz says. "We have to walk and talk at the same time to get to the portal."

"Maybe Ward doesn't need to go to the portal."

"That's cold, Coulson."

"You killed May." He punches him, hard enough for his knuckles to scream with pain. 

"She killed Kara."

.Phil shoves him down, turning his face into the dirt. "No, Ward, that was you. You shot her." He wraps Ward's wrists in zip tie handcuffs and pulls them tight. "You can't blame other people for what you've done anymore."

Ward grins, shrugging a little. "I tried to think of a way to get you to kill May, but I just didn't have the tech."

Kicking him would make Phil feel better, but Fitz's right. They need to get to the portal. 

"The portal's this way, we need to hurry."

"You could kill me now." 

"I could." Phil shoves him forward instead. "Or we can use you to attract the creature. Do you think he's bleeding enough?"

"I'd rather he was dead." Fitz levels the gun at Ward's back. "Please give me a reason to shoot you."

"Where's the fun in that?" Ward jokes, but starts walking. 

Once Ward is a he's a little bit ahead, Fitz whispers. "Why are you still telling him May's dead?"

"I want him to know he's failed before he dies."

"Just don't--"

"I know," Phil whispers back. He raises his voice a little. "He'll attract the creature and we can run." 

"So I'm bait?"

"Finally, you do something useful," Fitz mutters. 

Then they walk, through dusty desolation. The skeleton of a forgotten city rots in the distance, and they stare at it as they pass. 

"Do you think the creature did that? The Hydra texts call it a god." 

"Gods are more often part of death and destruction then they are kind and generous." 

"This god will remake the world."

"Doesn't stuff like that just make you want to kill him?" Fitz nudges Ward with the gun. 

"I'm trying not to think about how much I want him dead"

"What is it, Coulson, afraid you might enjoy it?"

Fitz tilts his head towards the horizon. The portal must be there. 

Phil gestures towards the portal. "Go, but keep the gun on Ward."

Fitz backs towards the portal. They still haven't seen the creature so perhaps they'll be all right. Maybe it hasn't smelt Ward's blood yet. 

"You're going to kill me with my hands behind my back?"

"Yes, that was the plan."

"Cold, Phil. Can I call you Phil?"

"You shot May."

"I nearly shot her before. When Lorelei was here, I nearly shot her, but...I was cured and I had to let her live. I nearly shot her at Providence base, but you weren't together then. It's better now, when you finally worked out whatever dance you were doing. It hurts more now that you finally got it right."

Fitz stands on the edge of the portal, and it's time to go. Time to end this. 

Phil cuts Ward's bonds, freeing his hands, then punches him in the face. Once, then again, then again. Ward hits him back but pain is a distraction. What matters is the end. He sweeps Ward's legs out from under him. Melinda taught him that move. Once Ward's down, his hand rests on Ward's chest, holding him there. Ward's heart beats just under his hand. That hand's never felt like him, so maybe that's why he presses down. Ward's heart beats faster, his chest struggles to rise. 

"May's alive," Phil says, his voice level and even. "It's funny, she's been so angry about her morning sickness and she has every right to be. It's awful, but you didn't know. It's the variable that ruined your whole complicated plan. You missed."

He presses down harder, his fingers snapping bone and rending muscle. "You missed because May was about to throw up." 

The gloating fades into fear, and Ward's smile disappears. His eyes widen as the two realizations arrive at once: he's about to die, and May's--

"Melinda's pregnant, and she's going to be fine. You're going to die, here, now, and I'm going to go home to her."

Ward's heart thrashes against his ribs, but it's the end, and he goes still. It stops and Phil's shoving his hand into dead flesh. Phil stands, staring at his artificial hand. It's a weapon, and he doesn't feel right bringing it back. It'll make him think about death and he's going back to life.

To Melinda, and eventually a baby, and there's no place for death. He drops his hand next to Ward's corpse and runs for the portal. It's time to go home. 

* * *

"You still shouldn't be out of bed." Rosalind says, swinging her feet on the bench while they wait for the Zephyr to land. 

"Are you going to try and stop me? I know you haven't had combat training yet." Melinda turns to her, her arm still bound to her chest so her shoulder can heal. She hates slings, and her breasts are sore. She flexes her fingers, then reaches inside her hoodie to free her hand.

"Oh I'm not doubting you could absolutely make me do whatever you want, with one hand, but, I feel like Phil would want me to protest. "

"I know I'm supposed to keep my hand up, but my breasts are too sore."

Rosalind tilts her head, and her expression softens away from mother hen. She helps Melinda remove the sling from her neck. "I won't tell your doctor, just don't pop your stitches."

"I'll be careful."

They nearly had to sneak out of medical to wait for the Zephyr, and she sat through a few lectures from the medical team but it's not like she's fighting anyone or running around. She's sitting on a bench drinking tea. It's boring. 

"Are you careful?"

"I get shot a lot less than the average specialist."

"That's good to know."

Melinda shuts her eyes for a moment, then takes another sip of her tea. Coming back from England with good wind currents they should be here soon. She would have had the Zephyr here ten minutes ago, but there's really no comparison with the other pilots and her. 

"How's the stuff they gave you for nausea?"

"Not so bad. It's making my head fuzzy."

"You're sure it's not the blood transfusions, minor surgery and lack of pain meds?"

"I know what lack of pain meds feels like."

"I bet you do." Rosalind sips her coffee and picks up her book. It's a Queen Elizabeth biography. Melinda will have to get her something about Empress Wu, if she's into female leaders. 

"I hate the foggy more than being in pain. Pain you can work with."

"My husband hated most of his meds. You would have totally gotten along."

"Sounds like it."

"He could cook though."

"Phil can cook."

"It's so nice when a man can cook, but he's never expected to. I can't cook at all and everyone's always surprised."

Meinda laughs a little, then the roof opens and the Zephyr, finally, arrives. Wind whooshes around them and makes her hair fly everywhere. When she starts to stand up, Rosalind grabs her hand, steadying her. 

She can't hear her speak over the noise of the Zephyr but she's pretty sure she's being chastised about stitches. 

Then there's Phil. He's covered in dust and there are new bruises on his face, but he's alive. He takes a few steps towards her and smiles. She takes a step towards him, then another and then his arms are around her and she throws her good arm around his neck and he's home. He smells like sweat and an alien world and her shoulder aches white hot when she hugs him too tight.

But it doesn't matter. He's home and everything's right. 


	7. 3x15 Spacetime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes and Melinda and Phil heal, Daisy is pulled into a strange mission and Andrew comes to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience! Work's been pretty intense. It's a little longer than usually so hopefully that helps.

Phil's first day back from that death planet, they barely get out of bed. He runs his hand over her chest, resting it over her heart as if reminding himself she's still real. Fitz has a new hand for him a day later and it sparkles when she touches it. It feels real to her, even when it rests on her naked skin. He's less convinced, and his sleep is restless, even though she's beside him. 

He whispers about what he did on the planet, how he killed Grant Ward, how he enjoyed it. He hates himself, and doesn't, and all she has is gratitude. WArd was dangerous. He was a killer. 

"We don't take that step," he says to the darkness above the bed. 

Melinda curls into his chest, half asleep. "We do when we need to." She does it all the time. Weighs life against life, decides who she has to cross off. Ward had no redemption. He enjoys pain. He could have killed Co-pilot, and her, but her own brush with death doesn't seem real. If Ward's shot had been better, she'd just be dead. She wouldn't even have felt it, but it would have haunted Phil forever.

"I'm glad he's dead."

He takes a breath, then touches her hair. "So am I, but I hate myself for it."

"Don't."

"Just don't?"

"He was an unredeemable killer, who knows what he would have done with his Hydra true believer nonsense."

"The planet changed him."

She traces the scar on his chest. "Something like that changes a person."

"He was always looking for something to believe in. Garrett, Hydra, that creature--"

"It takes a lot to fill a darkness like his." 

Phil strokes her belly, his hand brushing across just below her navel. "It feels like a waste of time dwelling on him when I'm here with you."

Sitting up a little, she kisses his chest, working her way up. "Then don't." 

Chuckling, he reaches over to the bedside table and grabs his hand. Some things are easier with two. He kisses her after he twists it on, digging his fingers into her hair because he loves her hair.

He's very gentle with her until the stitches come out. He's still gentle afterwards, even when her arm moves fairly normally, and she has to remind him that pressing her up against the wall won't break her. It's a funny balance between not being able to get enough of each other and the mess pregnancy hormones make of her once-predictable body. 

She could function on very little sleep, now she's half asleep in Rosalind's meetings unless she's very careful to get enough. Melinda could eat when she needed too, could choke down MREs and protein bars without a thought, now her stomach churns at the thought of most food. She can keep it still by eating, even when it seems like the worst idea. 

Still, she can count on her hands the days she doesn't throw up, and Phil sits with her, passes off phone calls with the president and hands meetings off to Rosalind so he can sit on the cold bathroom floor. 

He can't do anything, and he learns to just sit, and read or talk about anything but how worried he is. 

Yet this is normal, somehow. Simmons has examined her, Lincoln has examined her, two obstetricians with sufficient clearance levels have checked her at auxiliary bases. The cocktail of hormones helping Co-Pilot grow are murder. They talk about moving off base, and they will, eventually, but for now, it's safe, and secure and for their working-not-working terrible use of medical leave, it's where they need to be. 

It would be hard to give up seeing Daisy in the kitchen, or eating Mack's dinners. Phil can cook, and he does more often as he hands off more responsibilities to Rosalind. Letting SHIELD function beneath the banner of the ATCU has taken a little of their autonomy, but if Rosalind's no longer reporting to Malick perhaps it's all right. Phil's a good director, but he's tired and distracted and a little respite gives him some time to learn to smile again. 

Selfishly, they fold into each other. They eat together, and Phil helps her work her shoulder back up to where she needs it to be. She reaches for him about as often as she reaches for the damn crackers and it feels selfish and indulgent and she shouldn't be happy. 

Yet happiness grows within her, rooted along with Co-Pilot. It makes the nausea somewhat bearable as her breasts ache and her stomach softens. Time takes the stiffness from her wound, and Phil's bruises heal. He smiles with Daisy, with Hunter and Bobbi and the team, and there's a soft kind of normalcy in the two of them being a little more together. 

As days go by, Rosalind is a decent enough shot, better than Simmons, and they train together. Melinda teaches them both to center themselves as she falls into orbit with Phil. She was one, so accustomed to solitude, perhaps she lied to herself even then, because when he falls asleep beside her she wonders how alone she really was after she joined the team. He came to the cockpit to talk to her, he interrupted her tai chi, she sat on his desk and they talked long into the night. 

Touching his body follows so easily after all the time they spent together, and now the scent of him clings to her. His hand rests on the nightstand, disembodied and charging while they sleep. His biological hand, the one that doesn't hurt, finds her stomach and rests there. He can't feel anything, it doesn't even look different. Lincoln said the baby's and her growing uterus are not even out of her hips yet, which is why she has to pee so often. 

That was supposed to be later, according to what she knew about pregnancy from anecdotes and fiction. She bought a couple books about it when she and Andrew were trying, but after Bahrain, she never opened them. They're in a box, in storage.

She put her heart away like that. Melinda thought she was taking it out again for Andrew, that they'd rekindled something worthwhile, but they were more flawed than she knew. 

She and Phil have lied to each other, concealed things, for SHIELD and to protect each other and they fought. Lash is different. Daisy went through terragenesis and came out herself, Andrew did not. Andrew believed in honesty, Andrew was kind, he thought everyone could be saved. She thought he was better than she was, a healer while she was a weapon--

Then he turned into a monster. 

Melinda leaves the bed, settling down against the cool brick wall in the bathroom. Her stomach threatens the back of her throat, and after rarely being sick for years, now she's gotten comfortable with this. Sometimes she wonders if she does it to herself, because her mind wanders and she worries and then Co-Pilot decides it's too much. Lincoln says there's a slight psychological aspect, but it's mostly hormones. Hers are intense. 

Of course. 

Phil stands sleepily in the bathroom door, a dark shape in the weak light. He yawns, then sits beside her, rubbing his hand over her back. 

He doesn't need to be awake, and she touches his thigh, then his chest. He rests his head on her shoulder, warm and sleepy, and it's a strange moment, beautiful and miserable and then she throws up. 

It's easier than it was, weeks ago when it started. Simmons says hormones have changed her stomach acid, and it doesn't sting as it once did, if she surrenders, it's over faster. Still awful; she hates it, but even that's softening. 

Phil stands to fill her a glass of water and then helps her up. He still doesn't have his hand on for the day and it's sweet how he cradles the water between his forearm and his stomach. Washing out her mouth, she forces herself to swallow half a glass, to have something in her stomach, and she'll have to eat those crackers. 

Phil curls around her while she sits on the side of the bed to eat. When her stomach stills and all she can taste is crackers, she lies down again, wrapping into him. They made it this far. They'll make it through the rest. 

* * *

Phil leaves on a mission while she's picking at her breakfast. Someone in New York mentioned Daisy by name and they need to sort it out. Normally Melinda would fly the mission, but she's not going to be involved with anything remotely dangerous (even though going to the doctor, apparently is). They have other pilots, this is more of a mystery than a combat op, but she misses him when he's not in contact with her. 

She finds ways to keep busy. There's always paperwork, recruits to study, training to check in on, and when they arrive back just after lunch, Daisy's haunted. 

She saw something, a vision, and Rosalind shot her, and there was snow-- Of course it's an inhuman with yet unseen powers. 

Do they ever have the same powers? 

After the debriefing, Melinda ends up with a mission. Pick up the family, talk to them. See if they'll come in to be interviewed. 

She has Hunter to keep her safe and Lincoln and Simmons both give her a look, but it's a quiet flight and they land cloaked in a park. It's one of the stranger visits she's been on, because the mother smiles when Melinda introduces herself.

"I'm Agent May, with SHIELD." 

"Robin said you were coming." 

"What?"

"She said May, she stumbled with Agent, but she got the word May. I'm Polly, and this is Robin."

The little girl continues coloring, making a mass of blue and black. She looks up for a moment, then returns to coloring. 

"May, mommy."

"Yes, Robin, this is Agent May, she's going to take us somewhere to talk." 

Robin picks up her drawing and hands it to May. 

"He come."

"Who?"

"A monster."

"I'm sorry," Polly begins and Melinda must not be hiding her feelings well at all. "She sees things, like her father, and it's very confusing for her."

The drawing is barely more than a blue and black stick figure, but the hair, the shoulders--

"She's right." Melinda swallows, hard, because she's going to throw up again. "I know a monster."

"Monster come, say goodbye." 

She crouches down to look at Robin, meeting her eyes. Robin smiles, suddenly bright, as if they've known each other for years and Melinda is a favorite aunt. 

"Hi, May."

"Hello Robin."

"You take us in a plane."

"We are going to fly. Is that okay?"

"We don't crash this time."

"We crash?"

"Someday, but we are okay."

"That's a little ominous," Hunter says behind her. 

"She sees things, everything, I think. It could be years from now. Decades even, sometimes I think what's going to happen changes and she says different things."

"Or we crash on the way home," Hunter mutters. 

Robin takes her hand and her mother's, and tugs them towards the door. "We go now."

Polly picks up a backpack, and Hunter grabs the other. "We're staying for a few days."

Melinda didn't know that was the case, but Robin must have been convinced. She has to slow her breathing to keep her stomach level. She's not ready to see Andrew-Lash-whatever-whoever he is now. 

It's not working, because she can taste lunch in the back of her throat. 

Robin lets go of her hand two steps before Melinda throws up in the garden beside their little house. It's overgrown, and hopefully she won't damage anything. 

Hunter swallows a fuck and manages to turn it into: "Bloody hell, you all right?"

"Fine."

Robin whispers something to Polly, and the whole team waits for her to stop throwing up. 

"Hormones are brutal," Polly says gently, touching her shoulder. "I'm sorry if that's a secret."

"Oh we know," Hunter says, grinning. "We've known for weeks, you seemed like a safe enough mission we could take her out."

"You were meant to come."

Robin looks up at Hunter, then back at Polly. "I told you he talked funny."

"You did," Polly says to Robin. 

Melinda rolls her eyes but being annoyed at Hunter helps her focus. Another breath and she's all right. She has those stupid ginger candies on the quinjet. 

"My name's Hunter, by the way."

"Polly Hinton."

"Robin doesn't know me?"

"I don't think she knew how to explain you'd have a British accent. She's seen Agent May many times in the past few days, so we know you were coming. She did mention Agent May would feel yucky."

That's a word for it. "Great."

"That happens a lot lately, don't feel bad, love." Hunter says as he helps Robin get buckled in. "May gets better quick though." 

"You like soccer."

"That I do, love."

Robin smiles at that as Melinda helps her mother with the straps. 

"I was sick the whole time I was pregnant with Robin."

"Great."

"She's worth it."

Melinda smiles, and Hunter chuckles and she's so not talking to him. He does hand her the bag of candies as they sit down. 

"They help." He eats one too, in solidarity, and he might actually like them. Phil does. She has no idea why. Perhaps he's trying to convince her they aren't so bad. His sense of taste can't be that strange. 

Unless it is. 

Back at the Playground, Phil takes Polly to ask her questions, and Robin takes Melinda's hand. Phil smiles a little and Daisy's eyebrows raise.

"Robin likes Agent May."

"Okay," Daisy says, starting to smile. "Well, you stay with May then."

Luckily, Robin doesn't take much to entertain. There's so much going on in her head that she's content just to sit on a stool in the kitchen and watch May make tea. 

"Does your mom drink tea?"

"She does, but tea's hard to get there."

"At your house?"

"No." Robin states, as if looking through her. "My mom says tea is different on Earth."

Melinda takes a moment to process that idea, and takes a breath. If Robin lives to be eighty or so, she could live in space some day. Or perhaps she's just talking. She's four. She probably believes in unicorns and fairies and goblins. 

"Are you hungry?"

Robin looks at her and nods. 

Easy enough. 

"We have yogurt, I can make you a sandwich, you can eat crackers and cheese, or peanut butter."

"You don't like the cheese."

Melinda has to smile a little. "I did like the cheese. Right now it makes me feel yucky."

"You feel yucky a lot."

"Is it going to get better?" Maybe Robin knows. No one else seems too. 

"I don't know." Robin takes a cracker, and sips her milk. She's incredibly polite for a child. Distant, somehow, like she's in another room, or watching a movie only she sees. Maybe that's what it's like for her, something constantly happening that no one else understands. 

Melinda sits on a stool beside her, forcing herself to eat a few of the crackers. 

"The monster won't hurt Daisy." Robin says, moving the crackers around on her plate.

"Andrew?"

"He isn't Andrew." Robin's tiny hand grabs her wrist. "Andrew says goodbye." 

She gasps without meaning too, tensing, and Robin looks hurt for a moment, like a rejected child. 

"It's all right, I'm not mad."

"You're not mad."

She hates that her eyes sting, and she can't scare Robin. "Andrew used to be special to me, we were married, like your mommy and daddy." 

"My daddy went away to the roof."

"I know, I'm sorry." 

"He's sad."

"Can you see him?"

"Daddy stays on the roof." Robin breaks a cracker, then another, moving the pieces around. She takes the plastic sleeve, pouring all the crackers out and turning them into something. 

"You two okay?" Polly and Phil come down the hall, with Daisy just behind them. 

"We were having a snack."

"She needs to make sense of things she sees."

Phil touches her shoulder, squeezing a little, and she pats his hand. 

"We're fine."

"Robin really likes Agent May, she's talked about her for days, maybe longer. It's hard for me to keep track of people until Robin learns their names."

"Did she talk about anyone else?"

"A monster, her father on the roof. She drew a lot of flowers."

"That's probably me," Daisy says. 

"Oh?"

"My name's Daisy Johnson."

Polly nods. "That makes sense. I'm not sure she knows what a Daisy is, but she has drawn a lot of flowers, and May, wearing black. I guess you spend some time together, at some point."

"Does what she sees change?"

"Sometimes. I think much of it she just lacks the words for. Before she changed we were were just starting to talk about letters, and she learned the alphabet, now she might see her entire life--"

"Some of it in space."

"She talks about that. Her mom drinking tea in space." Polly sighs, and for an instant she looks incredibly sad. "I've never liked tea."

"I've always preferred coffee myself," Phil says, lightening the mood a little. "Hopefully we find some in space, if we ever end up there." 

Robin's "mom" likes tea, in space, and Polly doesn't. Melinda takes a moment, then it hits her like turbulence. The mom Robin's talking about, isn't Polly. In some future, Robin has a different mother. 

She can't fathom letting Co-Pilot go, watching her (or him) call another woman mother, and Co-Pilot isn't even here yet. They're barely a thought and she adores them. 

"What is she making with the crackers?" Phil asks, looking over Melinda's shoulder. 

"I don't know. Sometimes she moves her blocks around, or builds things with her toys."

"Toys?" 

"Dolls, her stuffed animals. May's been her black cat." 

Phil touches Melinda's shoulder again. "A cat huh?"

"Robin really likes her. The cat is her favorite." 

"Charles was taken by Hydra, they're collecting Inhumans..." Daisy explains to Polly and Melinda lets that fade away. That's not her mission. Bobbi, Daisy, Hunter, Mack, they can handle it. She and Phil weren't in the vision. Maybe they stay with Robin. 

One of the crackers lies down on top of a rectangle shape, another lies beside it. Robin takes her time with them, then takes Melinda's mug and places it above them. She crosses two spoons over the mug and then sits back. 

"Can I have crayons?"

Polly opens her purse, taking out crayons and paper. While she talks to Daisy and Phil, then Rosalind, Robin moves on from the crackers and starts drawing stick figures. MAybe they're lines. Melinda can't decide if she is allowed to take her tea back, or if it has to be part of the picture, but she wants it. 

"Robin, can I take my tea?"

"It's in the sky."

"Is it all right to drink it?"

"It leaves the sky."

That seems to be a yes, so she rescues her tea and watches Robin draw without really watching. Something appears. Melinda can't help worrying that the blue and black tangle is Lash, and perhaps the black one is her. It's hard to tell. Robin's skills will get better as she gets older. Right now her tiny hands barely hold the crayons.

"Did you work out a way to prevent Daisy from getting shot?"

"We don't actually think Rosalind will shoot Daisy," Phil reminds her, running his hand over the back of her neck. "I'm not in her vision, so we thought if I go and Rosalind stays here, maybe we can change things."

"You stay," Robin says, adding more red to a rectangular shape. "Coulson stays here."

"I do?"

She looks up at him, but through him. "Coulson should stay, it's not the kind of thing you face alone."

The words aren't hers, neither is the tone. Who is she repeating? Phil stays to be speak but the siren blares.

Intruder. 

Robin growns, picking up the blue and the teal crayons at the same time. She presses them into the paper so hard that it crumples, tearing. 

Mack walks into the kitchen as the siren stops. "May, Coulson, Dr. Garner is here."

"He's here to say goodbye." Melinda says, ice running through her veins. 

"Yeah."

"Okay." She can do this. She owes him that. Kneeling down by Robin, she touches her shoulder. "I have to go see Andrew."

"He doesn't hurt you." Robin hands her the blue crayon, with the most serious expression. "He doesn't."

"I wasn't worried-"

"I was-" Phil finishes. "CAn you stay with me and draw while May goes to talk to Andrew? Your mother's going to go with Daisy." 

"She won't bring daddy back, he can't come." 

That's far too much pain for one small child, and Melinda wants to hug her. She hands Phil the blue crayon and goes to say goodbye to her former husband.

* * *

Phil makes dinner while Robin colors. He does a pretty good mac'n'cheese, from scratch, and kids love that. Robin is in a way one of the easiest children he's ever watched. She barely speaks, has an almost adult politeness, and just wants to draw. 

Or move things around. They don't have blocks, or toys, but Mack gives her some nuts and spare bolts she can move around, and Simmons has some plastic sample containers. Polly speaks to her softly before she leaves, and Robin nods over her drawing. 

"May and Coulson will stay with me." And that seems perfectly acceptable. 

They eat in silence, Robin using the adult fork far too big for her hand after she sets the crayon down. He glances over towards containment again and Robin meets his eyes when he turns back. 

"She's sad"

"May?"

"The monster makes her sad." 

He looks towards containment again and his throat tightens. "I--"

"I'll stay here, I'm good."

Even the best child her age can't sit alone. Phil walks into the hall enough to find a tech and wave her over. "Stay with Robin, I'll be back in a few minutes. She doesn't talk much."

The containment unit holds Andrew and Melinda but it barely muffles their voices. He's rarely heard Melinda so upset. A few times she's yelled at him, really yelled, but he wants to rush in there and pull her back. She won't appreciate that. Lash might not appreciate that, though he still looks like Andrew. 

"You can't defend murder."

"It's not murder, it's necessary. It's just like you to turn things around, when you kill inhumans, it's fine."

"I've only killed a few."

"And what made them worthy of death, Melinda? What made you their executioner?"

"They were dangerous," her voice rises, then wavers. He should get in there. The door's locked and it takes a moment to enter his access code.

"You get to decide that?"

"Yes."

"Based on what? Why are you right and what you do is justified and what I've been doing isn't? Because you killed them for SHIELD?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't even make sense. SHIELD isn't some all knowing organization, it was infiltrated by Hydra for god's sakes."

The door opening surprises them both and Melinda shakes her head.

"Phil--"

"Are you here to watch?" Andrew says, but he's not the Dr. Garner Phil knows. His tone is wrong. "Gain some valuable insight into inhumans?"

"I just wanted to make sure Melinda was all right."

"You think I'd hurt her, Phil?" Andrew laughs, wretched and miserable. 'After what you've done? You sent her in to kill that girl. You broke my wife, ruined my marriage."

"Your marriage?" Melinda repeats, her lips thin and hard. 

"It's not like you wanted to hang onto it. You just shut down, shut me out." 

Phil rests a hand on her shoulder, wishing he could do something, but this has been coming for years, and Lash is just making it worse. 

"You kept him though."

Melinda makes a noise, and just stares, her eyes so dark they're almost black in the light. 

"What? Isn't that true? I was too much, I wanted too much from you, but you kept Phil, because he's the one you--"

"What?" Her eyes flash. "He's the one I love?"

"You certainly don't love me. Maybe it's not something you're really capable of after all. Our marriage was just an experiment, a mild diversion from your mission."

"That's not fair."

"Fairness has nothing to do with it when it's true. I was nothing to you, we were nothing, because you threw us away, and you know, Melinda, now, now it's a good thing, because I'm inhuman, and we know what you do to inhumans."

"You kill them!" she snaps at him. 

"You kill children, so I guess it's a good thing we never had one. With my genes--"

She slaps him, hard, her hand slamming into his face with a crack. Phil's between them a moment later. 

"We're going."

"What, you're afraid to let her face me? She kills inhumans, Phil. I'm no different" 

_ But she's different. _ He shouldn't, he absolutely should not say anything, but the words come. "She is."

"She's what?"

"Don't--" Melinda says, touching his arm.

"Melinda's pregnant.'

Andrew growls, then takes a step back, he paces beyond the bed, then stops, almost smiling. "Pregnant?"

Melinda takes a step towards him and Phil stays between them. She nods.

"I'm happy for you."

She wants to believe him, she wants to see Andrew in his face. Phil's not sure what's left of him. 

"Yours?" 

Phil nods. Maybe that will distract him. Keep him from being angry with Melinda.

"Can't say I'm surprised."

"Step back," Phil says behind him. 

"He won't--"

"Melinda, this is goodbye."

"No, Andrew."

"I can't fight it." Andrew sighs, staring at his hands. "I don't think I want to. Maybe I was always supposed to be him."

"No, you don't--"

"Be together, be happy, I'm glad you have that." Andrew shudders, bending down and they have to go. 

Phil nearly shoves her back, out of containment and Andrew growls, then changes. Then he's gone.

Staring through the glass of the door, Melinda looks at him, horrified, then back at the window. "That's it?"

Phil starts to nod and her chin trembles. Her eyes well up and her hands shake as she reaches for him. 

"No."

"I'm so sorry." She buries her face in his chest, and he holds her. He can't know what she's going through, can't imagine how hard it is to lose someone but still have them in front of you. 

Robin walks around the corner, the tech just behind her. She takes them in and Phil nods to her over Melinda's shoulder, trying to keep her from being afraid. 

"He doesn't come back." 

Melinda swallows a sob, and cries silently into his shirt. Phil can't help thinking of Bahrain as she clings to him. 

"My daddy doesn't come back either." There's no sorrow in her face, only acceptance. Like it happened years ago and she's already found peace. "Then my daddy puts the pieces together."

Pulling herself up, Melinda turns to Robin, wiping her tears away. "The pieces?"

"He has to save the world, and mommy, and my sister."

"Your sister?" Kneeling, she looks at Robin. 

Robin nods, walking to Melinda and touching her face. "She's just a baby, but they love her very much."   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been rewatching s5 and Robin and Melinda are so cute I couldn't resist playing with her a little earlier. Thanks for reading!!


End file.
